BBX Minerals secures up to $9m to accelerate bioleaching process
Lind Partners will invest up to $9 million in BBX Minerals, with the funds to be used to advance a bioleaching process for precious metals extraction.
Brazilian-focused precious metals explorer BBX Minerals (ASX: BBX) has secured up to $9 million in funding to further its innovative bioleaching process aimed at extracting precious metals from ore in an environmentally-friendly way.
In a staged private placement over 24 months, Lind Partners will subscribe for an initial $3 million of shares with additional investment of $6 million, “subject to mutual agreement.”
Lind Partners is a New York-based asset manager focused on publicly listed small cap stocks in Australia, Canada and the UK.
Initial shares will be issued at $0.1575 each, which is a 57% premium on Thursday’s closing price of $0.10.
Lind will also be issued just over 7.14 million options and will be exercisable at $0.12 each up to 31 December 2025.
BBX says the investment satisfies the company’s short and long-term funding requirements, enabling it to accelerate bioleaching and other “value accretive development activities”.
Northern Brazil focus
BBX is focused on the Apui region in Amazonas state in Brazil’s southern Amazon region, where the company believes there’s high potential to discover world-class gold, platinum group metals (PGM) and base metal deposits.
The company’s key assets are the Três Estados platinum group metal and Ema gold projects. The projects are located in cleared farmland.
In association with EcoBiome Metals LLC, BBX is working on a bioleaching process that uses natural microbial techniques to extract the minerals sustainably.
Currently, the improvement process is being carried out at EcoBiome’s facility in The Woodlands, Texas, where EcoBiome has designed and commissioned a dedicated pilot plant designed to simulate a potential production circuit.
After that, BBX plans to build its own pilot plant near its existing laboratory in Catalao, Brazil.
Funding the bioleach plant and beyond
BBX chief executive Andre J Douchane said the initial $3 million was enough for the company to commission the pilot plant.
The additional $6 million will support extra activities such as drilling, upgrading the current resource, commencing a feasibility study and initiating permitting procedures.
The investment is by way of Lind Global Fund II LP, an entity managed by Lind Partners.
Lind Partners founder Jess Easton said that having watched BBX for close to seven years, it was pleased to support the continued development of the Três Estados and Ema assets and the company’s “unique, environmentally compatible and sustainable bioleaching process.”