For many junior mining companies, the twenty-first century is a perplexing place.
Mining itself, of course, is as old as the hills.
But mining finance, and the way junior companies are put together generally are starting to look pretty dated too.
How much difference is there between the speculation and promotions of the late nineteenth century and the speculation and promotions of today?
The internet can help putting the word out, and capital pools can now be international as well as local, but apart from that not much else has changed.
In general.
But Sidney Resources Corporation (OTC:SDRC) is different.
Sidney, it seems, is with the programme, and well and truly ensconced in the twenty-first century and not the nineteenth.
To be sure, it has all the key requirements of your old fashioned miner – a highly prospective, potentially huge project at Lucky Ben in Idaho, from which gold grades of 15% of the 30 fire assay results in 2004, exceeded 131 grams per tonne with a highly attractive grade of 141.5 grams per tonne being the top result. Sidney has also recently acquired additional ground at the nearby Walla Walla project, from which new data is expected shortly.
Here, then, is the basis for the old fashioned kind of mining company.
Gold prospects that show promising grades, and which are likely to benefit significantly from further work.
So what is it about Sidney that sets it apart?
The short answer to that is: almost everything else.
First, and possibly, but not definitively most significantly, the company has recently added a new division, Irish Metals LLC.
This is a company that was founded by professional engineer and qualified metallurgist Mike Irish, who is now Sidney’s chief scientific officer. Its core business is in increasing recoveries in refining, and its technology is applicable across the board in mining, from gold to lithium.
Irish Metals isn’t a revenue generator quite yet, but according to Sidney Resources chief executive, serial entrepreneur and investor Sean-Rae Zalewski, it will be soon.
“We’re in conversations with several companies in regard to building refineries,” says Zalewski.
If that sounds like a big undertaking, Zalewski also notes that Sidney already has the backing in the shape of Indian social entrepreneur Gopala Krishnan and his Nanban group of companies. Nanban, explains Zalewski, has a goal to distribute a minimum of US$100M per opportunity for socially responsible and financially viable companies.
Does Sidney fit into this bracket?
You bet it does.
The refining technologies of Irish Metals use hydrometallurgical, or water-based methods, so don’t use any form of traditional pyrometallurgy or fire-based methods. so, they’re less energy and carbon intensive. In the water techniques employed by Irish Metals there is no liquid discharge. The process stabilizes primarily arsenic and other toxins from the ore into a minimal volume of solid waste product that is then shipped and permanently stored in a hazardous waste depository.
Sidney also has a strategic partnership with a solar panel company founded by the company’s recently appointed President, Chantel Greene. Greene is the founder and CEO of Xexus Greene Energy LLC, a 100% Native American and woman-owned consulting company. She served a three-year term from 2018-to-2021, as the elected vice-chairwoman of the Nez Perce Tribal Council (NPTEC). Recently requested to serve as a member of the 2022 Energy Infrastructure task force, through Idaho Governor’s Office of Energy and Mineral Resources. In addition, Greene was selected to serve on the Idaho Governor Little's COVID-19 Financial Cares Committee. She was also chosen to give written and oral testimony to the US House of Representatives Committee on Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior, Environment and Related Agencies 2020. She currently serves on the advisory committees for the Center for Tribal Nations (CTNAC) through ATNI, Idaho Energy Freedom Advisory Group. She also served on the 2021 Northwest CASC Deep Dive: Managing Climate Change Impacts on Stream Permanence.
These are powerful credentials to bring to the table when negotiating with any investment firm or potential joint venture partner.
But it’s not just the credentials that mark Sidney out, it’s the vision.
“We’re building the full supply chain, from ore to the extraction of the metals and their supply to solar and other green energies,” says Zalewski.
Much of this work will be done locally to Idaho, too.
One area in particular will be the subject of further attention: Idaho’s famous, but as yet largely unexploited cobalt deposits. Cobalt doesn’t have the best of reputations as a conflict mineral in any case, but when you factor in the amount of diesel and other energy required to ship it from producing areas to markets, the greenness of its credentials drops even further.
Separately, Sidney is also looking at the potential for rare earths and manganese on its Idaho landholdings, both of which metals will be central in the building of a green future.
And if that wasn’t enough, the company also has its own patented laser drilling technology, which it is marketing, and which uses 40% less water than standard drilling setups.
So, it all adds up to a company with a forward-looking vision, that’s very much on the move, and which already has plenty of support.
“The continued expansion of the company is what I’m focused on,” says Zalewski. He has ambitions to play a central role in cleaning up the water table of Western North America, for example. This is a company that thinks big, and which is beginning to make big-time connections.
In the meantime, watch for news on feasibility work on Lucky Ben, and remember that with gold on a tear above US$2,000 per ounce, Sidney is also an old fashioned mining company, with old fashioned upside too.