Neometals taps into precious metals waste recovery bid

Neometals is looking to stage a US$10 million ($AU15.1 million) cash-and-shares payment to grab an 80 per cent share in a United States-based company which has developed a hydrometallurgical process that selectively recovers precious metals from industrial waste streams.

The company says it has secured an option for the acquisition from Precious Metals Recovery (PMR), believing its expertise could increase production by further refining the pilot-plant process.

Management says it sees production of precious metals such as gold from industrial waste material as a natural fit with its green recycling ethos and technologies and a hedge to its principal business model of supplying and licensing its battery materials plant and technologies.

PMR’s 2-tonne per day pilot plant is in Colorado in the US and represents the end result of two years of developing its recovery technologies. It is based on processing more than 100 batches of industrial waste weighing from 100kg to 250kg that it has bought from third parties.

With Neometals’ Mercedes Benz battery recycling plant now well in hand, the company has had its metallurgical team supervising the completion of its initial six-week variability testwork on the PMR plant. It has involved processing waste material from multiple sources and trialling varying reagent and final product recovery regimes and it expects results within a few weeks.

Neometals managing director Chris Reed said: “Our long-term relationship with members of the PMR team has enabled us to secure this exceptional opportunity to evaluate a potential source of short-term cashflow via precious metal recovery from industrial waste. We hope to confirm the technical feasibility of the PMR Technology to deliver lowest quartile operating costs and show that precious metals production can be green too.”

The company secured the option with a US$50,000 (AU$75,500) payment fee to PMR vendors GreenFuels Energy (GFE) and Strata Trust Company (STC). It is looking to complete the 80 per cent acquisition with a package of US$500,000 (AU$754,500) in shares and US$2.4 million (AU$3.62 million) in cash.

It will also be required to stump up three further anniversary payments of US$2.37 million ($AU3.57 million). On completion, Neometals’ subsidiary Adamant Technologies will hold the 80 per cent interest in PMR, while the remaining 20 per cent will be retained by Sidvin Mintek – which is owned by the inventor of the PMR technology.

As part of the agreement, Neometals will have full access to PMR and its technology for its due diligence that has already included a six-week variability test program. A second program has also now been launched.

Management says ongoing work is being undertaken to confirm initial results and it will then define the most successful feedstock, reagent and recovery regimes – all of which is slated for completion next month. That will have the company well-positioned to decide whether or not to proceed with taking up its option prior to the August 31 option expiry date.

Recycling waste to recover gold and platinum group metals – who would have thought?

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