Chairman
Peter graduated with a B.Sc. in Geology from University College London (UCL) in 1974 and worked initially in and around extractive industries, first as a geophysics technician at UCL, next as a petroleum geologist in Libya, then in mining & metals market analysis.
He and Barbara Sotowicz set up their own company, Bloomsbury Minerals Economics (BME) in 1993; Peter is its Chairman. Until 2006, BME was purely a research company, but from 2006 it re-focused on investment in a series of small- and medium-size private companies: Mining Journal / MCL (2006-08), FastMarkets (2008-12), Intierra (2009-14) and Roskill (2010-21).
The Roskill investment began Bloomsbury’s re-orientation towards energy transition and the environment. Roskill is globally prominent in market, production cost, energy use and ESG analysis of battery raw materials. From early 2020 Bloomsbury’s emphasis shifted further towards sustainability, by way of an investment in Skarn Associates, which researches the energy use and greenhouse gas emissions of mine production globally. Skarn has recently also begun researching water use, plus flood and drought risk in mining. Land use, biodiversity and safety are also due to be covered. Skarn is globally pre-eminent in mining ESG analysis.
In mid-2021, Peter and Barbara ( who is also a Non-Executive Director of BNC ) oversaw the formation of Bloomsbury Natural Capital, an 85%-owned BME subsidiary, which was set up to invest in regenerative primary industries. The first such investment was in Cascadia Seaweed Corp. of British Columbia, in November 2021. This will be followed by further investments in macro- and micro-algae cultivation, plus investments in forestry and in hi-tech service companies related to forestry and wetlands. Investments in regenerative agriculture, vertical farming and closed-system horticulture will follow.
