Canada Silver Cobalt Works Inc announced that it has established a separate subsidiary for its battery metals business to be named Coniagas Battery Metals Inc.
The Coquitlam, British Columbia-based company said the new subsidiary will own the nickel-copper-cobalt exploration properties that it is currently exploring in northern Quebec and Ontario, as well as the proprietary ‘green’ Re-2Ox processing technology that is able to produce cobalt, nickel and copper sulphates for electric vehicle battery manufacturers.
“While the company’s main focus continues to be our world-class high-grade silver deposit at Castle East … we are also taking additional steps along the path we had outlined previously towards surfacing value for our battery metals assets,” Canada Silver Cobalt CEO Frank Basa said in a statement.
“The establishment of this new subsidiary will pave the way for an eventual spin-out of our battery metals business into a separate publicly-traded company for the benefit of our shareholders.”
READ: Canada Silver Cobalt ropes in GoldSpot Discoveries to apply AI to high-grade Silver Castle East project
The company said Coniagas Battery Metals will include the Re-2Ox processing technology and 39,200 total hectares of prospective nickel-copper-cobalt over 15 exploration properties in northern Quebec and one property east of the Sudbury Basin nickel deposits in Ontario.
Re-2Ox is a proprietary, environmentally friendly, closed-loop, hydrometallurgical process for the extraction of cobalt, nickel and other base metals from primary feeds such as mined material and secondary feeds, including recycled battery black mass, and the subsequent production of cobalt, nickel and other sulphates needed in the battery industry.
The process meets strict environmental standards because it does not involve smelting - or burning - that many other processes use and it has no discharge.
“Right now there is a lot of interest in battery metals and we think the best way forward to give our assets a higher level of visibility, and for achieving a proper valuation in the market, would be to split the company into two parts – one focused on the exceptional Castle East silver discovery as well as the Kirkland Lake-area gold properties we recently acquired, and the other tasked with advancing our battery metals exploration properties and the Re-2Ox technology,” president, chief operating officer and vice president for exploration Matt Halliday said.
Canada Silver Cobalt’s flagship Castle property is 15 kilometres (km) east of Aris Gold Corp’s Juby gold deposit, 30 km due south of Alamos Gold’s Young-Davidson mine, 75 km southwest of Kirkland Lake Gold’s Macassa Complex, and 100 km southeast of new gold discoveries in the Timmins West area.
Contact the author at stephen.gunnion@proactiveinvestors.com