Lithium, the power behind your EV, discovered on Wexford-Wicklow border

Shares in Arkle Resources jumped on Thursday after the John Teeling-led minerals explorer said it found lithium-bearing rock in granite in its Mine River Block on the Wexford-Wicklow border.

The exploration company, which previously focused solely on gold and zinc exploration and changed its name from Connemara Mining in 2019, said that of 34 rock chip samples taken from the site late last year, six returned lithium grades of more than 0.02 per cent, with one returning 0.09 per cent.

One of the main uses of lithium is in rechargeable batteries for mobile phones, laptops and electric vehicles. The lightest metal on the planet is also used by the chemicals and pharmaceuticals industries.

The six samples that returned elevated lithium were all boulders of pegmatite rock – a course igneous rock – collected around mapped granite bodies.

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Geochemical results also showed clear pathfinder elements for lithium – caesium, rubidium and tantalum – which can be used to target a coarse type of igneous rock in future soil surveys, the company said.

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Shares in Arkle, which was founded in 2004, jumped as much as 22 per cent in early trading in London on Thursday, but had pulled back from their highs by midmorning to trade 4.4 per cent higher, giving the exploration minnow a market value of about £2.4 million (€2.7m).

Arkle said its directors believe these results are “compelling” as they suggest the Mine River Block is fertile for lithium caesium tantalum (LCT) pegmatite deposits

“These are exciting results,” said Mr Teeling, the company’s executive chairman. “We have discovered lithium on our licences. We found the rock type needed, pegmatites, and in the pegmatites found lithium and other indicator minerals. This opens compelling new opportunities for our Mine River Block. Prospecting will resume in the near future”.

Still, he told The Irish Times that moving from proof of concept to establishing proof of resources on the project will take years.

“We’ve been exploring for gold in the Wicklow granite for decades. But exploring for lithium in hard rocks has only been viable since 2018,” Mr Teeling said. “Demand for lithium has exploded and is currently growing at 30 per cent a year.”

Prices have surged more than 10-fold since 2020 to record highs of almost $80,000 per tonne, according to data from Benchmark Mineral Intelligence.

Arkle is also continuing gold exploration in the Wexford-Wicklow area and in Donegal, and has a 23.4 per cent interest in an active zinc exploration project in the Stonepark area of Limerick which is being led by majority stakeholder Group Eleven Resources.