Weardale Lithium has received a £700,000 government grant for a detailed feasibility study at its geothermal lithium project in Eastgate, County Durham.
MAPPING
The funds are from the £4 billion DRIVE35 Scale-Up: Feasibility Studies competition, and delivered by the Department for Business and Trade in partnership with the Advanced Propulsion Centre UK (APC) and Innovate UK.
Weardale said it planned to use the money to map its geothermal lithium-bearing brinefield within the North Pennine Orefield.
The work will de-risk “future commercial deployment of direct lithium extraction (DLE) technology” and inform “long-term wellfield design and commercial production strategy”.
The company added: “Among the workflows, the project will include exploration to define fracture networks hosting lithium-bearing brines.
“The interpretation will be utilised to refine the existing 3D geological model and optimise wellfield development for future commercial production.”
Weardale, which already has planning permission for a two-phase development, said that the project represented the “UK’s largest permitted lithium extraction project”.