Fulcrum Metals (AIM:FMET) has secured the site for its pilot facility in Mississauga, Ontario, and signed a Pilot Scale Demonstration Agreement with Extrakt Process Solutions and Test Design Implement Solutions.
The AIM and OTCQB-listed company is developing a platform to recover precious and critical metals from mine waste using Extrakt's cyanide-free technology, and the agreement governs how TDI will deploy and operate that technology at the new facility for its Teck-Hughes programme and any subsequent agreed projects.
Teck-Hughes is a gold tailings project in the historic Kirkland Lake camp where Fulcrum holds full ownership; a 159-hole auger programme there has already confirmed gold and silver throughout the tailings along with tellurium, gallium and other elements, feeding into a maiden NI 43-101 resource estimate now in preparation.
The Mississauga premises run to approximately 12,526 square feet, leased by Fulcrum's subsidiary Fulcrum EnviroTech for an initial six years from 1 October, with an option to extend a further six years.
The planned facility will have a capacity of up to 2.4 tonnes per day in batches of around 600 kilograms, with fit-out and commissioning targeted by the end of the fourth quarter.
Successful pilot testing at Teck-Hughes is a condition of the non-binding term sheet Fulcrum signed with Chancery Royalty, under which Chancery would pay $20 million for a 5% net smelter return royalty over future Teck-Hughes gold production, subject to due diligence and definitive documentation; Fulcrum would retain a right to buy back 2% of that royalty for $10 million within two years of commercial production starting.
"Securing the site and signing the Pilot Scale Demonstration Agreement are major execution milestones that move our funded pilot facility and initial Teck-Hughes programme into physical delivery," said chief executive Ryan Mee.
"This is not a one-project pilot," he added, describing it instead as "a multi-project development accelerator that moves projects using Extrakt's technology from laboratory testing towards commercial development decisions without building a separate pilot facility for each project."
Teck-Hughes and Sylvanite, Fulcrum's two tailings projects in the Kirkland Lake camp, will be the first programmes through the facility, with the company's exclusive rights to deploy Extrakt's technology extending across more than 70 documented legacy tailings sites in the Kirkland Lake and Timmins districts.
The agreement also allows for pilot programmes with approved third-party partners, which Fulcrum frames as an additional route to scale beyond its own asset base.
The company's pilot programme follows a £6.0 million financing package agreed with Yorkville Advisors earlier this year, covering equity, convertible loans and a £2.5 million at-the-market facility, structured to fund pilot scoping, construction and testing.
Fit-out and commissioning of the Mississauga facility remain targeted for completion by the end of the fourth quarter.