Ocean Wall's Chairman & Founder Nick Lawson writes the Opinion piece in this week's MoneyWeek that Cornwall has finally got a growth story after 25 years of EU-funded stagnation, and it’s built on real rock: lithium, tin, the West’s biggest tungsten resource, plus Britain’s first deep geothermal plant.
China’s tungsten export squeeze (APT price up 10x since early 2025) just made Redmoor and Hemerdon strategically vital, not just geologically interesting. But Imerys shelving St Austell after France threw €50m at a rival project is the real lesson: geology never wins funding battles, state cheques do.
The National Wealth Fund has backed the right projects (Cornish Lithium, Cornish Metals) but its remit is too broad to act like an anchor investor.
Britain needs one properly scaled processing hub and a tungsten stockpile, framed as national security, not regional aid. Otherwise Kazakhstan or France gets there first.
reader.moneyweek.com/2026/07…