Mineral company to make £18m investment in Cornwall

A mineral supplier in Cornwall has announced an £18m investment in its dry mining process.

Imerys, which extracts china clay (kaolin) in the county, announced the investment after receiving a £2.1m grant from Cornwall Council through the Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Good Growth Programme.

Imerys said it would upgrade its clay processing facilities with a dry mining plant to be built in the Karslake area, near Roche. It said the upgrade would also help cut its electricity use in Cornwall by 10%.

Mark Hewson, who leads Imerys in the UK, said: “Through direct and indirect employment, we support around 3,500 jobs and in addition spend more than £40m every year in the local economy.

“This investment – which allows the significant update of our facilities – will help us to shore up those jobs and maintain that economic support for many years to come.”

He said the project would also help its lithium project, which is located in an old china clay pit.

“The strength of our project is our ability to use our existing china clay assets to minimise the impact on the local area,” Hewson said.