In October 2023 we announced that we had received £294,000 in grant funding from the UK Government's Automotive Transformation Fund, to meet 70% of the cost of a feasibility study into innovative methods to process the minerals at the Arthrath Project.

This study will investigate the potential to accelerate the production of cathode raw materials in North East Scotland for UK battery manufacturing, using more environmentally sustainable and socially acceptable approaches than the carbon-intensive, overseas supply chains on which UK industry currently relies.

Read our announcement here.

The grant was awarded through the Automotive Transformation Fund: Feasibility Studies Round 4 competition coordinated by the Advanced Propulsion Centre UK and Innovate UK. The full project title is: "A feasibility study of innovative mineral processing routes to accelerate the low-carbon production of cathode raw materials from North East Scotland for the UK’s automotive industry."

Progress updates

• 413 metres of drilling completed in two holes at Arthrath Central (AR008DD and AR009DD) to collect a bulk sample for the testwork programme.
• 1.5 tonnes of mineralized sample submitted to Wardell Armstrong International’s metallurgical lab in Cornwall, UK.
• Stage 1 of the testwork programme (sample crushing and pilot plant processing) now in progress, to prepare flotation concentrate samples for Stage 2 hydrometallurgical testing.