EnviroGold Global Limited (CSE: NVRO) (OTCQB: ESGLF) announced its intention to transition to a mining technology royalty company.
The Company is currently working with five major global metal production companies to test its technology for the recovery of precious, base, and critical metals across seven waste streams (tailings and other residues).
In November, the Company announced the positive initial test results with one of these mining companies. The initial test results on a leach of a flotation concentrate showed a solid oxidation rate and recovered relatively high levels of metals – Ni (76.5%), Cu (63.4%), Co (80.1%), with concentrations in the residue for platinum and palladium of 1.09 g/t and 0.57 g/t, respectively. The Company-produced head grade for the flotation concentrate used in the initial tests averaged 0.97% Ni, 0.45% Cu, and 0.24% Co. Phase 2 testing is expected to be completed in Q1 2024. With success in the phase 2 testing, work will start on pre-pilot plant testing.
Since our last update, the Company has started work on the tailings from three other mining companies, with initial results from testing on the tailings for two of the companies to be provided later in January 2024. There should be various catalysts related to advances for the Company in Q1 2024.
With the interest in the Company’s technology from mining companies, EnviroGold Global plans to transition away from its current business model of signing tailing reprocessing agreements with a split in free cash flow from the project, to a business model of providing the tailings processing technology to companies through a licencing agreement in exchange for a royalty on revenue from the production of metals from the reprocessing of wastes. This approach uses the same proprietary technology with a different revenue model.
Not only will the technology royalty model be capital light, but unlike other mining royalty companies that need to raise large sums of capital to make upfront payments in exchange for a royalty, the Company intends to licence its technology in exchange for a royalty. So, the expectation is this will be a less equity-dilutive business model relative to other mining royalty companies.
The Company’s goal is to provide global mining companies with a 20-30+% after-tax internal rate of return (IRR) on their respective tailings projects, while collecting a royalty in return. The individual project IRRs will vary but will reflect the reduced risks associated with resource definition, mining, and comminution for the waste resources and will be dependent on variables such as the prevailing metals prices, scale of the tailings / other wastes, complexity related to metal recovery, and most importantly the metal grades within the tailings / other wastes.
The Company’s technology will assist mining companies in meeting their environmental, social, and governance (ESG) mandates by remediating wastes while generating positive after-tax rates of returns and helping to reduce the reclamation liability on their balance sheets.
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