Vulcan awarded EU Strategic Project status under Critical Raw Materials Act

Vulcan Energy’s Phase One Lionheart Project (the Project) has been identified as a Strategic Project under the European Commission’s Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA). 

The awarding of Strategic Project status reflects the Project’s alignment with the objectives of the CRMA, which is designed to secure a sustainable supply chain for critical raw materials, including lithium, across Europe.

The CRMA establishes clear targets for increasing domestic capacities within the strategic raw material supply chain, while improving access to funding, and ensuring adherence to the highest social and environmental standards. The CRMA designates strategic projects to increase European Union (EU) capacity to extract, process and recycle strategic raw materials and diversify EU supplies from third countries. 

Strategic Project status will allow Vulcan Energy Ressourcen GmbH (Vulcan’s German entity that applied as project promoter to the European Commission) to request a meeting of the CRMA financing subgroup which is expected to streamline the Project’s progression through a CRM Board subgroup to discuss and provide advice on how the financing of the Project can be completed, taking into account private and public sources of funding. The status also ensures the possibility for regional and national authorities to make use of funding from the European Development Fund and Cohesion Fund to support the relevant project.