Vulcan Energy Secures Second Lionheart Permit and Reshuffles Board as Ludwig's €1.26 Billion Bill Looms

Vulcan Energy locked in a second lithium extraction permit for its Lionheart project, valid until 2032, as shares trade near 52-week lows.

Vulcan Energy has locked in a second lithium extraction licence for its Lionheart project in Germany's Upper Rhine Valley, a six-year permit covering the Landau geothermal field that the company intends to fold into a single 30-year authorisation before the current approvals lapse in 2032. The new licence, designated Ilka and valid until 9 September 2032, complements the LiThermEx permit granted in March for the Insheim field. Both are designed to underpin at least three decades of extraction — a prerequisite for refinancing the billion-euro build-out at Lionheart over its planned operating life.

Construction at Lionheart has been underway since February, backed by a €2.2 billion financing package finalised in December 2025 that blends bank loans, government subsidies and equity stakes from the likes of KfW, HOCHTIEF and Siemens Financial Services. First production is targeted for 2028, with a ramp-up to 24,000 tonnes of lithium chemicals plus 275 gigawatt-hours of electricity and 560 gigawatt-hours of heat annually. Management says building and field development remain on schedule.

A second German project takes shape

While Lionheart advances, Vulcan is pushing a parallel venture. Project Ludwig, unveiled in August, carries a price tag of €1.26 billion and targets 21,100 tonnes of battery-grade lithium carbonate per year across a planned 30-year lifespan. The scoping study, completed roughly two weeks ago, puts the after-tax net present value at €1.73 billion and the internal rate of return at 20.2%, assuming a lithium carbonate price of €20,588 per tonne.

Vulcan frames Ludwig as a repeatable growth template for further sites and is hunting for additional strategic investors to bankroll the expansion while Lionheart's first construction phase is already in motion. A final investment decision on Ludwig is not expected until 2029 — only after Lionheart has entered commercial production. That sequential logic helps explain why the market has yet to treat Ludwig as an immediate catalyst: years separate the scoping study from the first shovel in the ground.

Boardroom reshuffle signals the next phase

The leadership transition announced via a regulatory capital markets disclosure fits that same narrative. Angus Barker took over as Non-Executive Chair on 12 September, succeeding Francis Wedin, who had served as Executive Chair and will now focus on the growth portfolio and business development in his role as founder. The reorganisation of the previous board structure is widely read as a signal to prospective backers that Vulcan is aligning its governance with the forthcoming financing round for Ludwig — a phase demanding a different leadership setup than the founding era.

Share price stays under the cosh

Operational milestones have done little to lift the stock. Shares closed Friday at €1.50, down 2.1% on the day, leaving the equity just 3.1% above its 52-week low of €1.46. Over 30 days the decline reaches 17%, and since the start of the year the loss stands at 41%. The gap to October's annual high of €4.15 amounts to roughly 64%, while the stock trades well below its 50-, 100- and 200-day moving averages — the 200-day line alone sits 30% above the current price, underscoring how entrenched the medium-term downtrend has become.

The half-year figures for the period ending 30 June, released in September, failed to turn the mood: the loss narrowed from a year earlier, but revenue fell, and the shares shed 5% following publication. Ludwig's unveiling has also weighed on sentiment, knocking 8.0% off the stock since its presentation. With a market capitalisation of around €698 million, the valuation appears to reflect scepticism about the financing burden of the coming years rather than confidence in the long-term project economics.

For investors, the picture remains split. On the operational side, Lionheart and Ludwig are progressing to plan, including the push for long-term licence security stretching to 2032 and beyond. The market, however, is withholding its endorsement as long as the funding question for the second expansion stage stays open and the capital intensity of the business bears down on the numbers.