Colwell’s Controlled Thermal Resources has brought in Goldman Sachs to find equity partners for the project and Hargrave Engineers as its construction contractor.

CTR forecasts its Hell’s Kitchen project would produce 49.9MW of renewable power and 25,000 metric tons of lithium hydroxide from its first stage, but it has a projected resource capacity to produce 1,100MW of baseload renewable power and about 300,000 metric tons of lithium carbonate equivalent (LCE) products a year.

CTR said its direct lithium recovery from geothermal brines was “a positive industry disruptor”. It uses a closed-loop process to sustainably recover lithium and return brine to the geothermal reservoir deep beneath the earth. This method utilizes 100 per cent renewable power and steam to produce battery-grade lithium products in one location – with a close-to-zero carbon footprint.

The company would not reveal the size of its equity raising.

Before launching CTR, Colwell was a property developer in Brisbane

“On the sales and co-location front, lithium spot prices continue to break records as demand escalates beyond anyone’s expectations,” Colwell said.

“CTR has signed three lithium supply agreements.  In addition to negotiating further lithium offtake agreements for CTR’s future stages, we have appointed third party specialist teams to conduct economic studies for CTR to better understand several value-add opportunities.

“What has become most apparent this year is that CTR has established itself as an instrumental driver of value within the auto industry.

“We are not just ‘suppliers of lithium’.  We are working with our strategic partners to deliver solutions that support the emerging battery supply chain.

“Due to the CTR strategy of an integrated power/lithium extraction process and the fact that we can provide co-location potential with renewable power and reduced capital requirements, this sets CTR apart from our competitors and aligns us with our client partners for the long term. ”