Clean TeQ Water Ltd (ASX:CNQ) shares rose 6% intra-day to $0.62 after signing an exclusive global technology licence agreement with Soane Labs LLC for its Accelerated Dewatering Technology, known as ATA™.
The agreement provides Clean TeQ with an exclusive global licence to exploit the ATA technology, along with an option to purchase the technology at Clean TeQ’s discretion within 18 months.
Clean TeQ will complete due diligence and initiate a pilot-scale demonstration to validate the performance and economics of the technology during the 18-month evaluation period.
CEO William Vriesendorp said: “We are pleased to have reached this agreement with Soane Labs, for what we believe is an incredibly exciting and versatile suite of technologies that will strongly position our company to provide new solutions in mine waste management.
“Licensing the ATA™ technology complements our existing strategy of identifying technologies that apply low-cost solutions to address large-scale problems and with a minimal energy footprint.”
Licence terms
The licence terms involve payment by Clean TeQ to Soane Labs of up to A$300,000 over 18 months.
If Clean TeQ exercises its option to purchase the technology, it will pay Soane Labs A$3 million in cash or shares, or a combination thereof, at the election of Clean TeQ.
The licensing agreement is effective immediately and will be supplemented by a consulting services agreement for Soane Labs to provide ongoing support to Clean TeQ for the duration of the licence.
Rapid separation of water and solids
The ATA technology was developed to provide a safe and low-cost mine tailings treatment process by rapidly separating water and solids to produce stackable tailings and recycled water.
ATA uses smart chemistry to rapidly agglomerate the solids in ore slurries.
The solids are screen filtered and dewatered under their own gravity or, alternatively, low-pressure filters can be used for dewatering.
The resulting materials can be compressed and stacked, with the extracted water being returned to recycle, dramatically reducing water usage.
In underground mining operations, the compact material may also be used for backfill, with or without cement.
“Enormous" market opportunity
Mine waste dewatering presents an enormous market opportunity, according to Clean TeQ.
Dewatering presents a significant environmental and safety challenge at many mine sites around the world, particularly those located in tropical climates where natural evaporation rates are low, or where seismic activity increases geotechnical risks.
Also, as environmental bonding requirements increase in response to higher perceived risk in managing tailings storage facilities, it will be rapid and low-cost dewatering technologies, like ATA, that will become key pillars of delivering on the mining industry’s ESG ambitions.
Clean TeQ believes that chemistry-based solutions to mine waste dewatering provide a far better outcome than mechanical-based processes.
Current technologies employ a mix of high-pressure filtration and/or mechanical evaporation to remove water from slurry, which is both capital and energy intensive.
Base and precious metals applications
Clean TeQ sees further benefits from the ATA technology where it can be used in conjunction with its proprietary ion exchange systems (Clean-iX®) to recover valuable metals as part of a holistic mining rehabilitation program.
The ATA technology is already deployed in applications in South Africa for the rapid dewatering of mine tailings.
These current applications will continue to be owned by Soane Labs, but the clients will be managed by Clean TeQ in the future based on an agreed revenue sharing arrangement.
In addition, Clean TeQ is currently testing the ATA technologies in base metals and precious metals applications.
The intention is to deploy the technology at potential client sites in coming months for pilot-scale testing.