London – 10 January 2024: Women in Mining UK 2023 Summer Internship at Cornish Lithium– Imogen Sparks
Written by: Imogen Sparks
During the summer term of my master’s program at the Camborne School of Mines, I was offered an eight-week internship with Cornish Lithium, a mineral exploration company focused on the sustainable extraction of lithium and other battery metals in Cornwall. To begin, I would like to thank Women in Mining UK and Cornish Lithium for providing me with this opportunity and the valuable experiences I gained during my placement.
During my time I worked mostly with the ESG team. The team were a great source of knowledge and guidance during my time at Cornish Lithium. On my first day the HR manager arranged a series of inductions with different members of the company allowing me to see what all the different roles entailed and how the company works.
I started my internship at the same time as Waad Ebrahim, an intern working with the exploration geology department –Waad was a great person to get to know with so much interesting experience and knowledge about the industry.
My work focused on helping to set up carbon accounting and scope 1,2,3 calculation methodologies for Cornish Lithium. It was a brilliant project to be working on as Life Cycle Analysis, Scope 1,2,3 and decarbonization are such hot topics in the industry, so experience in this area has encouraged me to continue pursuing a career in mining.
Furthermore, as the project crossed all sections of the company, I was able to get insights into the geology department, metallurgical and processing demo plant planning which was great to get a feel for all the different aspects of a mining company.
Overall, I really enjoyed my time with Cornish Lithium being exposed not only to the beginning and exploration stage of a mining company and new innovations but also to a great group of people – and surprisingly a dragon boat racing event!
Thank you to everyone at Cornish Lithium and looking forward to meeting you all again and reading about all your success in the news!