We are the world’s most efficient, profitable, clean producer of 5N pure ethical gold, silver, PGM, and critical transition metals from legacy gold mine rejects & stockpiles.
Around the world, there are numerous stockpiles of discarded waste rock from legacy gold mining operations carried out in the late 1800s and early 1900s, especially in Canada, the USA and Australia.
Mining operations a century ago were, relatively speaking, crude, and unable to recover anywhere near the maximum potential of the metals contained in the rocks.
Furthermore, these discarded waste rocks often contain significant sulphide mineralisation, notably chalcopyrite, pyrite and pyrrhotite, which under natural weathering generate acid rock drainage and accompanying heavy metal leaching into the environment..
- Cut-off grades of 8% copper and 4 g/t gold were used in BC and California to reduce extraction costs
- Stockpiles at each of these sites provide opportunity from the critical metals left behind
- Since the late 1800s, Canada has created more than 10,000 abandoned mine sites while the US has 500,000 sites
- Acid rock drainage and heavy metals are leaching into the environment