Positive City Council vote for Geothermal and Lithium Extraction Plant
Vulcan Energy Resources Limited (Vulcan, ASX: VUL, FSE: VUL, the Company) is pleased to announce the positive decision by the Landau City Council to execute an agreement to allow Vulcan to begin construction of its integrated Geothermal renewable energy and Lithium Extraction Plant (G-LEP).
The agreement enables Vulcan to construct the Phase One Geothermal renewable energy and Lithium Extraction Plant (G-LEP) on the intended land which is located in the Landau region.
Completion of acquisition of this land is set to occur subsequently, following satisfaction of already agreed conditions and execution of the formal purchase agreement.
- The land is located within the planned Landau commercial park “Am Messegelände Südost”.
- The positive vote underlines the strong support by the City of Landau, given the Project’s strong local social and environmental benefits.
- The prospective land acquisition is a major step in completion of the Phase One plant land packages and will add to the site already secured at Industrial Park Frankfurt Hoechst for the Central Lithium Plant (CLP), underlining the Company’s strong progress towards delivering Phase One.
- The decision comes shortly after the opening of Vulcan’s Lithium Extraction and Optimisation Plan (LEOP) in Landau, and during the early stages of Vulcan’s project-level Phase One financing which commenced at the end of November.
- Vulcan’s Phase One commercial operation is targeting 24,000 tonnes per annum lithium hydroxide
production, to supply the European battery electric vehicle supply chain.
Vulcan’s Managing Director and CEO, Cris Moreno, commented: “The decision from the Landau City Council not only represents an important step forward for the execution of Phase One of our ZERO CARBON LITHIUM™ Project, but also underlines the significant progress made towards enabling a more sustainable end-to-end Battery Electric Vehicle supply chain in Europe. This is a collective stakeholder engagement effort, and we are thrilled to have the City of Landau and its administration working together with us towards realising the enormous benefits of our Project to the Landau region and beyond. This positive decision is a significant de-risking event for Phase One. Our immediate focus now is on producing the first tonnes of lithium on specification from our Optimisation Plants in Q1 2024 and finalising our project-level Phase One financing by
the end of Q2.”
On 12 December, the Landau City Council formally approved a decision to grant Vulcan the right to begin construction of and subsequently, following satisfaction of conditions, acquire the land for its Phase One ZERO CARBON LITHIUM™ Project integrated G-LEP. This land is within the planned Landau commercial park “Am Messegelände Südost”. The final acquisition agreement will be signed following satisfaction of conditions, such conditions having already been agreed, between Vulcan and the relevant Landau City Department, and include partial fulfillment of the intended land development plan for the commercial park in which the land is located.
Lithium-rich brine and the hot industrial water will be transported to Vulcan’s G-LEP facilities in the Landau commercial park. The hot industrial water will be used to provide carbon neutral heat, thus producing green energy to benefit the local community in Landau and the surrounding region. In the Lithium Extraction Plant, the lithium will be extracted from the brine before it is returned to the subsurface, in a closed loop system. The lithium chloride produced will be transported to the Industrial Park in Hoechst for conversion to lithium
hydroxide.