MGX AGM 2018 Notes courtesy coldtoes on ceo.ca
These are my notes for my use. I’m happy to share them, but I will not claim they are verbatim or even accurate. I could quite easily have misunderstood or taken something out of context. I’m sure the other people at the meeting will be able to add their own thoughts, and let me know if I got anything too wrong.
I’m happy to answer any questions for things that are unclear, but please understand that these were notes and I had to write them fairly quickly, so I may not be able to elaborate too much.
As well, I had to leave about an hour and a half into the meeting, so some things may have come up after I left that I missed.
All in all, it was a good meeting and I really enjoyed hearing what Jared had to say. It was my first opportunity to hear him speak, and my feeling was that he was thinking faster than he could speak. Just the kind of ideas guy I want at the head of a fast moving organization like this. There was a lot of money in that room, and the money looked pretty pleased with itself and confident. Maybe that's their job, to look confident, but it is good to see.
I will also say that some of the answers made me think MGX is keeping an eye on this board, and using it to identify investor concerns so they can deal with them.
Highlights:
PEA for Driftwood should be out by the end of the month. MGX has been approached in the last two weeks regarding a sale or partnership re Driftwood. No details.
Chile is big, Jared talked a lot about it.
Recovering gold from brine or other water sources is coming.
Security of supply is most important for Li producers. MGX can sell lower grade Lithium at a good price because the producers / upgraders are so desperate for feed stock.
Notes (* denotes my thoughts, extrapolations. Anything else is not verbatim, but noted without editorializing).
PEA End of Month on sedar
Goal to control own assets.
Chile - few companies. A lot of lithium in brine , best brine
Break even in LI in Alberta.
Partners prefer getting royalties - cut a cheque.
Eastern seaboard- us- 200ppm LI oil brine
Many companies have sent samples, big data across many companies. * This is a big advantage, they have a data set NO ONE else does.
New govt in Chile, in country partners excited about new govt.
Later spoke of issues SQM had with previous Chilean gov’t
Chile could produce more, govt controls amount of production
Chile - MGX can just deploy equipment, no construction. (ie - no evaporation ponds, etc)
2400 m3 brine - 5000 tons LI - from Chilian brine
Chile amenable - no pissing match between companies and gov’t
Moving towards big projects, away from smaller units in oil fields - thinking more like miners.
Nanofiltration to clean water of particulates
Graphene potential replacement for nanoflotation
Optimization is key
California - water output specs - remove boron so water can be released into environment
Upgraders need LI so will take anything with LI. 20 / 30% LI chloride concentrate. Upgraders need feedstock. Still $7000 a ton usd - cheaper to make for MGX
LI Chloride concentrate not a permanent solution. Maybe Lithium hydroxide?
Security of supply issue, no new Lithium projects coming online by big miners. (Check this - not sure if he said “No” or “Few”)
100,000s of tons a year (218,000 tons) demand
Breakeven is 100ppm.
Side products - salt, potash, monetize additional minerals.
Randy from Berkshire - California- partnering with existing geothermal energy producers.
Transition from fossil fuels to renewables
Hybrid period of transition now - constrained by supply of Li
Cleaning up of oil industry will lengthen time oil will be in use.
Don’t want get into energy industry, not becoming utility.
Royalty on minerals for utilities. Big benefit for utilities, as they make small profits due to gov’t constraints.
Demineralization before going into power generation station. Because product was designed for oil sands can handle the high geothermal heat. Reduce maintenance on plants. Big plus for utilities. Corrosion is an issue with power plants.
SAGD - important to not have to cool brine down.
Waste product - 10% instead of with water.
Sludge is waste, can be taken to landfill.
Vanadium?
Gasification- coke minerals extraction.
Govt grants - 8.3 million to purlicid
Magnesium oxide in 2019
Transition to mass production
Batteries - 2019. Solar power storage. Zinc as gasoline. ??
Driftwood taking time. End of Month
Company so far built on consultants, looking to move to larger engineering companies. Announcement coming, taking over Driftwood.
Don’t want to dilute before earnings (*no PP, apparently)
Sell MG to US. High prices due to tarifs. $3600 per ton In US.. $1700 International. Oxide mg * I believe he said the last MG tariff on MG imports from Canada came off in 2015. Otherwise, the price differential would not be beneficial (tariffs were app $1700 per ton).
Open to sell Driftwood, been approached by Wall Street in last two weeks. Joint venture possibilities.
China shut down smaller, inefficient mg oxide operations. $596 per ton. Prices have not increased due to change, but this is because of contracts already being written.
Security of supply.
Gold - next big push. Out of water / brines. Separate from oil / geothermal.
Patents - bromley cto of purlucid. Mgx owns mineral extraction rights. March April the patent will become int’l. Provisional currently.
Purlucid has global rights to patents. Bromley gets royalties. Core patents assigned the MGX.
Interested in China. Will protect IP.
Key is filtration- filters made in Calgary . *Because the filters are made in Canada, this should protect the IP from reverse engineering. They could build a plant, but need specialized chemical engineering knowledge and training to attempt to replicate.
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