May 8 2019
Deer Horn Capital Inc. announces that the World Bank launched its Climate-Smart Mining Facility on May 1st, 2019, and it is the first-ever fund devoted to making mining for minerals sustainable and climate-smart.
The facility will promote sustainable extraction and processing of minerals and metals employed in clean energy technologies, for example, wind, solar power, and batteries for electric vehicles and energy storage. The fund is aimed at supporting resource-rich, developing countries to benefit from growing demand for minerals and metals while assuring that the mining sector is managed in a way that reduces the climate and environmental impact.
We are excited to see this support for sustainable mining of critical metals, especially from an organization like the World Bank. While their initiative focuses on developing nations, we believe the Climate-Smart sustainability principles would benefit Canada, as well.
Tyrone Docherty, President and CEO, Deer Horn Capital Inc.
According to the World Bank, Climate-Smart mining unites government, investors, academia and research, miners, and cleantech companies to help fulfill the requirements for minerals as the world shifts quickly to low-carbon technologies to fight climate change.
“Bringing these stakeholders together is similar to the partnership approach we are taking with critical metals innovators like Fenix Advanced Materials, the University of British Columbia, Teck Metals and Metal Tech Alley,” stated Docherty. “We believe the time has come for the industry to look at innovative and more sustainable ways to finance exploration and development and bring critical metals to market.”
Docherty remarked that Deer Horn’s strategy resulted in the joint venture announced in April to investigate territorial lands in Northern BC, aligning with elements of the company’s long-term vision concerning First Nations engagement and support. “A fundamental tenet of Deer Horn has been to grow through partnership and stewardship, especially with First Nations,” stated Docherty.
Sustainable mineral extraction is the main principle of Climate-Smart mining. “When you dig deeper into the Climate-Smart initiative, you see how they’re really advocating for more efficient and less impactful mining,” said Docherty. “They talk about innovation for a smaller environmental footprint, including what they call ‘Forest Smart’ mining. Not only does this make sense for sustainability, but it can also work well economically.”
Deer Horn has followed a comparable philosophy in investigating its Deer Horn property in west-central British Columbia, following a “small mine” strategy as summarized in the Preliminary Economic Assessment (“PEA”) finished in 2018. Beginning with a small mine can provide significant benefits, both economic and sustainable, while helping a project to go nearer to production more efficiently.
The typical strategy would be to keep drilling to try and increase the size of our resource. While we recognize the benefits of this conventional approach, we believe the long-term trend is towards these smaller, more sustainable operations that can scale up over time. As outlined in our recent PEA, the small mine approach requires far less capital expenditure and development time presents fewer permitting challenges and can provide a faster payback.
Tyrone Docherty, President and CEO, Deer Horn Capital Inc.
Further information about Deer Horn’s small mine approach is available on the company’s Small Mine Approach web page. For comprehensive information, please refer to Deer Horn’s recent Preliminary Economic Assessment.
Docherty also remarked that, due to the expected smaller environmental impact, Deer Horn has been benefited from First Nations support of its exploration and plans for moving the property forward. “We continue to work closely with First Nations representatives as we plan the next phases of work at the project.”
The Deer Horn property is one of few mineral projects in North America with an NI 43-101 qualifying resource for tellurium, a major constituent of thin-film, cadmium-telluride solar panels. Around 40% of the world’s tellurium supply is presently used by the solar panel industry.