Vulcan Energy’s Landau Spade Hits Dirt, But the Market Keeps Its Distance

Vulcan Energy starts civil works on its 30MW geothermal plant in Landau, Germany, as part of an integrated lithium and renewable energy project, despite stock trading near 52-week lows.

The concrete mixers have started rolling at Vulcan Energy’s Lionheart project in Landau, Germany, marking the transition from earthworks to full civil construction. Yet for all the noise on the ground, the company’s stock continues to trade within a whisker of its 52-week low — a disconnect that is becoming harder to ignore.

The Australian developer confirmed on Wednesday that civil works have begun on the 30-megawatt geothermal power plant, the first phase of an integrated lithium and renewable energy project in the Upper Rhine Valley. The site, roughly ten hectares in size, sits within the Messeplatz Südost industrial park. Foundations, concrete work for the power plant buildings, and road infrastructure are now underway.

Vulcan’s Phase 1 target calls for annual output of 24,000 tonnes of lithium hydroxide monohydrate — enough to supply roughly 500,000 electric vehicle batteries — plus 275 gigawatt-hours of electricity and 560 gigawatt-hours of heat. The company says construction remains on schedule and within budget, with commercial operations penciled in for 2028.

The technology underpinning the project — direct lithium extraction from geothermal brine — has yet to be proven at industrial scale. That makes Landau a test case not just for Vulcan, but for the European Union’s Critical Raw Materials Act, which aims to reduce the bloc’s reliance on imported lithium.

Financing Locked In, Execution Underway

The capital required to build Lionheart was secured in May, when Vulcan closed a €2.2 billion financing package. A consortium of HOCHTIEF, Siemens Financial Services, and Demeter took a 15 percent equity stake worth €133 million. The European Investment Bank contributed €250 million, with Germany’s KfW adding another €150 million.

The company’s financial close for the Europe project in the June quarter formally marks the shift from funding commitments to actual construction spending. That the package is now translating into physical progress on site is, in management’s view, a validation of the timeline.

CEO Cris Moreno described the move from preparatory earthworks to civil construction as a key milestone for the geothermal plant, which forms the backbone of the broader Lionheart scheme. Both the lithium extraction facility and the power plant will share infrastructure — a network of pipelines and cables carrying brine and industrial water between wells and the Landau site, with the water reinjected underground after use. Moreno stressed that producing its own baseload heat and power, with surplus heat sold to local customers, gives Lionheart a cost advantage and a buffer against high energy prices.

Civil work on the lithium extraction plant itself is expected to begin later this year. Drilling for new geothermal wells is already in progress, with a second well site due to come online in the second half of 2026. The overall construction phase is slated for completion by 2027.

A Minor Shrinkage in the Capital Stack

Alongside the construction update, Vulcan disclosed a small adjustment to its capital structure. A total of 134,225 VULAC performance rights lapsed on July 28 after failing to meet their vesting conditions. That leaves 3,028,139 unlisted performance rights still outstanding. For existing shareholders, the change is neutral — the lapsed rights will never convert into equity, marginally reducing the dilution risk from incentive instruments.

The Stock’s Own Story

None of this progress has registered on Vulcan’s share price. The stock closed at €1.61 on Tuesday, barely above the 52-week low of €1.55 touched the previous day. At current levels around €1.59, it sits just 2.64 percent above that floor.

The numbers from a distance are stark. The shares have lost 36.72 percent since the start of the year and are 59.44 percent below the 52-week high of €3.98 set on October 7, 2025. The 14-day relative strength index reads 30.9, edging into oversold territory, while the annualized 30-day volatility of 36.36 percent underscores the violent swings typical of a capital-intensive pre-revenue developer.

The RSI of 29.5 cited in the company’s own reporting paints a similar picture: the recent sell-off has been technically extreme. Yet the market is clearly pricing in the execution risk that comes with scaling up an unproven extraction method. Until the Landau plant is actually producing, the gap between operational milestones and share price performance is unlikely to close.

Management has pledged to keep the market updated on construction progress. The next major milestone will be the erection of buildings and the assembly of process equipment ahead of first production. For now, the spade is in the ground — but the market is waiting to see what comes out of it.