Gold price falls $70 an ounce, copper drops over 3% and iron ore rout accelerates, sending shares in major mining companies skidding.

Among expected announcements may be a cobalt-free battery, which will need higher quantities of less costly metals such as nickel and manganese.

Wheaton’s planned UK listing by year-end would make it the largest metals and mining company to join the LSE since Glencore in 2011.

The unit of Russia's state-owned nuclear energy firm Rosatom, plans to begin producing lithium by 2023.

Initial testing of geothermal waters in Cornwall’s historic mining area shows they contain some of the world’s highest grades and best overall chemical qualities for lithium.

Stockpiling by China's State Reserve Bureau "could mark a point where cobalt prices begin a sustained rise".