Coniagas Battery Metals Inc (TSXV:V.COS), a Canadian Junior Mining Company focused on nickel, copper, cobalt and platinum group metals in Quebec. The Market Online recently sat down again with CEO and Director, Frank Basa
The following is a transcription of the above video, and The Market Online has edited it for clarity.
TMO: We had such a short amount of time in our last conversation, so let’s go back and start with one of your last announcements around Coniagas’ ‘Global Feed-First Strategy’ in collaboration with SGS Québec. Could you elaborate on the strategic importance of this initiative and how it positions Coniagas in the critical minerals sector.
Basa: We have a very large property in Quebec called Graal, where we’ve done about 16,000 meters of drilling. We have spent about $6 million, and we found the strike length to be about six kilometers.
Also, we have had some spectacular results and actually we were raising money to continue the drill program. Then was an offer for feed (mineralized mined ore and concentrates) from all over the world. And I said, okay, we’ll have a look at this feed and there is a lot of this feed. It is surprising that it’s available now.
One of our key core things and what we are really trying to do at Coniagas is to be a supplier to the end user in the EV industry. So we thought, let’s beat everybody out there (other exploration companies) in becoming a supplier.
Drilling at your property and trying to develop a resource could take anywhere to two to six years as well as getting your permits (much longer than it would take to build a plant to process the feeds that are available now).
We have a process called Re-2Ox, which was developed over a six-year timeframe. It went from bench scale to pilot plant and we used it recently to produce an end product (cobalt sulphate) for the Asian market.
So we can produce a product that battery makers would buy.
It’s a very, very simple process. Basically, you can install it anywhere. It’s actually a very cheap process to put in. So we thought, let’s have a look at these feeds. We were offered feed from the DRC for example, 29 million tons of material, with metal grades even higher than our potential resource that we’re going to have at Graal.
We said, that’s quite interesting. Then we were offered even more material in different areas of the DRC.
So right now, we’re looking at this material. We’re going to try and do the test work with SGS in Quebec, and then based on the test work, we’ll probably go to a pilot plant. Then hopefully a full-scale plant.
Quebec has been pretty good to us. They’re very, very assertive, very aggressive.
They really want plants like ours to be in Quebec.
Investment Quebec actually found us a property plus they said, “look, we’ve allocated power for your facility and so you can bring material to Quebec to be processed. We’re looking at a place by a sea port,” which they found.
So feed can come in by ship, and if we proceed, we’ll probably produce the end product, or finalize the end product, in Quebec.
There are two battery plants being built in Quebec and three in Ontario. So maybe our plant might be able to supply some of these battery manufacturers.
TMO: Securing reliable, long-term sources of critical minerals is a cornerstone of your approach. Can you discuss the potential impact of this strategy on Coniagas’ supply chain resilience and its ability to meet market demands?
Basa: We’ve been offered two types of feed. One is in the field — 29 million tons of material, which is basically copper and cobalt, quite high grades. We could reprocess this material on site in the DRC and then finalize it here in Canada.
We were also offered concentrates, and the concentrates we’ve been offered go well with our Re-2Ox process.
Our process can take sulfide or hydroxide or oxide concentrates and the majority of concentrate that has been offered to us are oxides.
A lot of these oxide concentrates can’t go to a smelter because smelters need sulfur (found in sulphide concentrates) as an energy unit. So, we have multiple potential feeds, we’re evaluating them and then we’ll make a decision.
A lot of the people offering them actually want to become a partner with you, so they want to have a little more as a relationship than just selling it to you, they want to have a long-term relationship. And it might happen.
I think when you look at it, it’s easier for Coniagas to build a plant and in a shorter time frame than to carry on with a drill program, which we still will do.
Also, I think we have unbelievable potential at that Graal property from the results we have. Some of the results are quite spectacular and the area is known for these exceptionally good grades.
So, we will try to do two things at the same time. In other words, look at processing the feeds using the Re-2Ox process, and also probably continue with a drill program at Graal, (which could eventually supply feed to the Re-2Ox plant built in Quebec).
We are looking at quite a large drill program. Our real (higher) metal values are at depth.
There are some pretty high crazy grades so far over depths like 30-35 meters – very high grades. So I think we can do it, lots of potential.
The EV market will not go away. If anything, the market will get more and more intense as we move forward.
TMO: Let’s flip to one of your projects. Coniagas Battery Metals has seen significant progress with its Graal project in Quebec. Can you provide an update on the latest drilling results and how they align with your expectations for resource expansion?
Basa: We were trying to raise money for this and it amounted to only a small raise. Then we asked a driller to give us a budget for costs for deep holes.
The company raised a little under $600,000 and basically the deep hole cost estimate came out to be about $400,000. Basically, it’s a master hole with multiple wedges.
I thought, that’s a lot of risk to do only one hole. Instead, we decided to focus on Feed First.
We’ll let the market kind of tighten up, come next spring and then we’ll go ahead and raise the funds to do a larger drill program.
The intent is to do quite a large program. We’re known for drilling a hundred thousand meters plus over a three-year timeframe and that will give us the results we want to see.
So right now, we’re evaluating these feeds that have been offered to us. There’s a lot to look at. We didn’t know there’s so much feed out there. We might try to do a deal with some of these people who have the feed in some sort of relationship.
This kind of guarantees long-term feed for us – to be able to deliver an end product to the Canadian market or probably even the European market.
We’ve talked to people in Switzerland and in Germany. The Europeans are also interested for their electric vehicle market.
TMO: What about your proprietary Re-2Ox technology? It is presented as a game-changer for low-carbon battery metals extraction. How does this technology differentiate Coniagas from other players in the market. Also what are the next steps for its commercial deployment?
Basa: There are actually two processes in the Re-2Ox process. That’s why there’s a two in the name.
It’s hydrometallurgical. In other words, we don’t burn anything. There are no greenhouse gases and it was also designed to be very, what we call high sophistication, low tech.
You can put this plant almost anywhere in the world. Monitor it with a laptop from anywhere in the world. And take a normal person off any project and within three to six months they can operate this plant.
It’s high sophistication, low tech. It’s also the type of process where you can work in a country. For example in the DRC, you have power failures. Usually when you have a power failure in a normal plant, it takes a long time to start up again. But with a Re-2Ox plant, the minute the power comes back on, you just keep on going. It’s a very forgiving process.
TMO: What are some future insights you can give our audience forthe remainder of this year and into 2025?
Basa: I don’t think there’ll be any tax selling in the stock.
I don’t know if most people are aware of how we kind of create these companies.
This company, Coniagas, is actually a spinoff. This asset was in another one of our companies.
We spent a bit of money evaluating it. Then spun it out into a new company. The shareholders of the company from which it was spun get these free shares and warrants in the new company (Coniagas).
Usually there are shareholders who sell about a third of those spun-out shares.
The Coniagas stock has now stabilized about 10 cents. It might stay there.
It’s very tightly held. Hopefully come the new year, we’ll get a story going. Either a drill program or have some feeds to evaluate from Africa.
Actually, we’re offered feeds from other parts of the world as well. We’ll have to evaluate what we are going to do as the best approach. Short term- evaluation of feeds and drilling. Long-term-producing a product for an end user either in North America or in Europe.
You can find Coniagas Battery Metals Inc. on the Venture Exchange under the ticker symbol of V.COS. To learn more about them, their website is coniagas.com.
Company shares last traded at $0.075
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