LONDON (ShareCast) - (Sharecast News) - Mineral exploration and development company Beowulf Mining announced on Thursday that its wholly-owned Finnish subsidiary Fennoscandian Resources has been granted €0.79m (£0.68m) by Business Finland.
The AIM-traded firm said the grant funding was equivalent to 50% of the three-year, €1.6m budget for Fennoscandian's 'Spheronisation and Purification of Natural Graphite for the European Lithium-Ion Battery Market' project.

It said that work was part of the 'BATCircle2.0', or 'Finland-based Circular Ecosystem of Battery Metals', consortium, which was granted €10.8m by Business Finland as part of a total funding budget of €19.3m.

BATCircle2.0 was described as a "key project" in Business Finland`s Smart Mobility and Batteries from Finland programmes.

Beowulf said Finland has high-quality natural flake graphite resources, meaning the opportunity exists to create a sustainable value chain for anode material markets in Finland and Europe.

Currently, China is the dominant producer of spheronised graphite, using chemical purification and "hazardous" hydrofluoric acid.

The objectives of the project were to develop a chemical-free technological solution, using renewable energy, to spheronise and purify graphite within a Finnish industrial ecosystem, for use in the manufacture of lithium-ion battery anodes.

It said the project had three main objectives, with the first to validate a process to support progress to a bankable feasibility study for the construction of a commercial-scale unit within three to five years.

The second objective was to secure and protect any arising intellectual property, and the third was to deliver a detailed strategic marketing and commercialisation plan.

"Beowulf is extremely pleased that Business Finland continues to support Fennoscandian's ambitions of becoming a producer of anode material for lithium-ion batteries," said chief executive officer Kurt Budge.

"We are proud to be part of the Finnish battery ecosystem and collaborating with Finnish universities, research institutions and companies, all wanting to play their part in addressing the climate emergency.

"The scoping study for our Aitolampi graphite project is due to be completed in the coming weeks and we continue to work with Epsilon Advance Materials on the establishment of a strategic processing hub for producing pre-cursor anode material."

At 1129 BST, shares in Beowulf Mining were up 6.91% at 4.06p.

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