Neometals innovatively develops opportunities in minerals and advanced materials essential for a sustainable future. With a focus on the energy storage megatrend, the strategy focuses on de-risking and developing long life projects with strong partners and integrating down the value chain to increase margins and return value to shareholders.
Neometals has four core projects that all support the global transition to clean energy. Summarised below, the projects span the battery value chain and are being co-funded to development decisions with partners:
Recycling and Resource Recovery:
- Lithium-ion Battery Recycling – a proprietary process for recovering cobalt and other valuable materials from spent and scrap lithium batteries. Pilot plant testing completed with plans well advanced to conduct demonstration scale trials with 50:50 JV partner SMS group, working towards a development decision in early 2022; and
- Vanadium Recovery – sole funding the evaluation of a potential 50:50 joint venture with Critical Metals Ltd to recover vanadium from processing by-products (“Slag”) from leading Scandinavian Steel maker SSAB. Underpinned by a 10-year Slag supply agreement, a decision to develop sustainable European production of high-purity vanadium pentoxide is targeted for December 2022.
Downstream Advanced Materials:
- Lithium Refinery Project – evaluating the development of India’s first lithium refinery to supply the battery cathode industry with potential 50:50 JV partner Manikaran Power, underpinned by a binding life-of-mine annual offtake option for 57,000 tonnes per annum of Mt Marion 6% spodumene concentrate, working towards a development decision in 2022.
Upstream Industrial Minerals:
- Barrambie Titanium and Vanadium Project – one of the world’s highest-grade hard-rock titanium-vanadium deposits, working towards a development decision in mid-2021 with potential 50:50 JV partner IMUMR.
Neometals is focused on optimising finite resources with circular practices to benefit society and the environment for a sustainable future. It does this in two ways:
- by generating advanced materials in the energy storage supply chain that are critical for delivery of the technologies at the vanguard of climate change mitigation; and
- by using sustainable physical and business practices to extract, process and re-use materials. Specifically, we reduce environmental impacts through our involvement in the supply chain courtesy of circular economic principles, domestic raw material sourcing from responsible sources, reducing and sequestering CO2, remediation and re-use of waste.
Sustainability is core business for Neometals rather than a marketing lexicon. The Company is actively pivoting away from reliance on upstream minerals towards sustainable materials recovery opportunities.
