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AM Resources Corporation(“AM Resources” or the “Company”) (TSXV: AMR) (Frankfurt: 76A), a dynamic junior mining company focused on the exploration and development of high-potential pegmatite deposits, is pleased to announce the acquisition of a significant land package totaling 1,500 km2 through map staking in Austria. The newly acquired land is located in the Austrian Pegmatite Belt within the Austroalpine Nappes, known for its geological diversity and rich mineral endowment.
- Newly acquired 1,500 km2 land package gives AM Resources control over a large area of the Austrian Pegmatite Belt.
- New land package includes the Frederick Property, where 112 pegmatites were identified over an area of 52.25 km2.
- AM Resources properties are located within a 620 km radius of 14 battery plants.
AM Resources extended 1,500 km2 land package
Lithium Exploration Country Play
AM Resources has positioned itself to become the only lithium exploration country play in a proven jurisdiction with an existing Tier 1 lithium mine project1 and located within 620 km of end users.
The AM Resources team has been actively assembling a massive prospective land package with four key elements at the core of its strategy: proven geology, proximity to key markets, historical expertise, and a clear, proven mining code. Of the few jurisdictions that qualified, Austria was the obvious choice. AM Resources’ properties are located within 620 km of 14 planned battery plants and have direct access to an extensive rail system. Mining in Austria predates the founding of the country with the world’s oldest salt mine in operation2. In addition, mining has a tradition of skilled labor and an extensive academic and geological service network. In its report on the mining industry, Minlex (commissioned by the European Union) concluded: “In Austria, operators have investment security and legal certainty”3. When we combine all these elements and add in the massive land package available, the Company believes it has a unique investment proposition for its shareholders.
David Grondin, CEO of AM Resources, commented: "Seizing this unique opportunity in a proven mining friendly jurisdiction was a no-brainer for us. We are very excited to have assembled such a large, high value prospective property. We were diligent in testing and proving our theory last summer when we acquired two properties based on geological probabilistic structures and went to the ground and found spodumene4 on each one of them. Following this confirmation, we have staked all currently available claims that we believe to be of geological interest in the proven Austrian Pegmatite Belt5.”
Within the new property acquisition, the Company is excited to add the Frederick property to its portfolio with 112 identified pegmatites6 in an area of 52.25 km2. The longest identified pegmatite measures over 750 metres in length. This property demonstrates the exceptional potential of the Austrian Pegmatite Belt. The combination of the number and size of the identified pegmatites makes this property one of the team's top priorities for the Company's next exploration campaign.
AM Resources New Frederick Property
"This strategic acquisition represents a pivotal moment in AM Resources' growth plan and strengthens its position in one of the most prospective mineral regions in Europe. This acquisition fits perfectly with our growth strategy and underscores our confidence in the mineral potential of Austria. The geological diversity for other minerals and the presence of extensive pegmatite systems provide exciting discovery opportunities. To do so in such an overlooked, regulatory stable mining jurisdiction makes it even more exhilarating,” added Mr. Grondin.
The Company has spent the last few months building long-lasting local relationships with the government, service providers and professionals and is looking forward to carrying out exploration activities, continuing to investigate new lithium discoveries made during the last summer campaign, as well as exploring new prospective ground. In addition, AM Resources is considering expanding its land position to further enhance its strategic position.
New Land-Package Geology
Geological surveys indicate the presence of several thousand pegmatites variably distributed throughout the area. These pegmatite-bearing units consist primarily of mica schist and paragneiss, often containing staurolite and/or aluminosilicate-rich layers, with protoliths expected to range in age from Neoproterozoic to Carboniferous.
The spodumene pegmatites typically occur as dykes ranging in length from a few tens of metres to over 1 km, with thicknesses varying from a few decimetres to several metres. These pegmatites, together with leucogranites, which occur as inhomogeneous bodies with pegmatitic and aplitic zones, cover extensive areas of up to 1,500 km2. Their sharp contact with host rocks, sometimes with narrow reaction zones, underscores their geological importance.
This geological area has led to the discovery of the Wolfsberg deposit with over 10 million tonnes grading in excess of 1% spodumene. AM Resources' business model is to explore for a deposit of this magnitude on its newly acquired properties.
Warrants Extension
The Company also announces that it has applied for the TSX Venture Exchange’s approval to extend the term of an aggregate of 13,155,000 common share purchase warrants (the “Warrants”). The Warrants were originally issued as part of a private placement that closed in two tranches dated April 6 and April 29, 2022, respectively. The expiry dates will be extended as follows:
| Number of warrants | Exercise Price | Original Expiry Date | New Expiry Date |
| 8,695,000 | $0.075 | April 6, 2024 | April 6, 2025 |
| 4,460,000 | $0.075 | April 29, 2024 | April 29, 2025 |
All other terms of the Warrants will remain unchanged.
Qualified Person
Technical information related in this news release has been reviewed and verified by Jean Lafleur, P. Geo., of PJLEXPL Inc., a registered geologist with the Ordre des Géologues du Québec (OGQ #833) and is a qualified person (QP) as defined by NI 43-101. Mr. Lafleur is independent from the Company and has reviewed and approved the disclosure of the AM Resources geological information.
About AM Resources
AM Resources Corporation (TSXV: AMR) is a dynamic junior mining company focused on the exploration and development of high-potential pegmatite deposits. With a strategic portfolio of assets and a commitment to responsible resource development, the Company is dedicated to creating long-term value for its stakeholders while adhering to the highest standards of corporate governance and sustainability.
Forward-Looking Statements
This news release contains forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of AM Resources to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Often, but not always, forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of words such as “plans”, “expects”, “estimates”, “intends”, “anticipates” or “believes”, or variations of such words and phrases or state that certain actions, events or results “may”, “could”, “would”, “might” or “will” be taken, occur or be achieved. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on the forward-looking statements and information contained in this press release. Since forward-looking statements and information address future events and conditions, by their very nature they involve inherent risks and uncertainties. Actual results could differ materially from those currently anticipated due to a number of factors and risks. Readers are cautioned that the foregoing list of factors is not exhaustive. The forward-looking statements contained in this news release are made as of the date of this release and, accordingly, are subject to change after such date. AM Resources does not assume any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether written or oral, that may be made from time to time by us or on our behalf, except as required by applicable law.
Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
For further information:
David Grondin
AM Resources Corporation
President and Chief Executive Officer
1-514-360-0576
www.am-resources.ca
AMR:CA
Forward Water Technologies
Overview
Forward Water Technologies (TSXV:FWTC) is helping lithium mining companies and other industries reduce their environmental impact through its innovative wastewater treatment technology that enables industrial operations to reduce liquid waste volume by up to 95 percent.
Environmental, social and governance (ESG) ratings continue to be a key business strategy for organizations as they impact public perception and partnership possibilities. For water-intensive industries, such as mining, sustainable wastewater management is critical.
Transformative wastewater technologies are critical for both businesses and the world’s population. In fact, unless sufficient progress is achieved, UNICEF and WHO estimate that 1.6 billion people will be without access to safe drinking water by 2030, and 2.8 billion will be without access to safe sanitation and hygiene. Water treatment technologies can disrupt current trends and improve global access to safe drinking water.
Through its Forward Osmosis (FO) technology, Forward Water is providing an environmentally friendly alternative to traditional wastewater disposal. Traditionally, wastewater disposal requires transporting untreated wastewater for deep well disposal or high-intensity thermal treatment.
Forward Water’s FO system is installed at the client site, and wastewater is treated to reduce waste volume and produce valuable clean water for reuse in the manufacturing process. Then, the significantly reduced volume of wastewater is transported and disposed of, significantly saving on transportation and disposal costs.
The FO technology targets three massive sectors: industrial wastewater, mining and food manufacturing. Forward Water’s unique and patented FO technology achieves high-rate water extraction within a low-energy continuous process. The process reduces waste and allows up to 95 percent water recovery, ready for reuse.
Forward Water’s Li-FO™ technology is ideal for lithium-brine mining operations, allowing mines to “fine tune” brine sources to improve concentration by up to 20 times. This results in improved recovery and makes lower-concentration brines economically viable. Forward Water is currently embarking on an early development testing project to further evaluate and refine the technology’s viability in lithium mining.
In 2023, the company’s wholly owned subsidiary, Forward Water Technologies Inc., licensed specific intellectual property from FUJIFILM Corporation to solidify the protection of its water treatment technology platform.
CleanTech Lithium (AIM:CTL,Frankfurt:T2N,OTC:CTLHF) has contracted FWT to provide advisory services for the support and development of CleanTech Lithium's direct lithium extraction (DLE) process in Chile. The collaboration will use FWT’s industrial forward osmosis system in the hyper-concentrating of CleanTech Lithium's eluate and its conversion into battery-grade lithium carbonate through Conductive Energy's DLE process.
Howie Honeyman, CEO, explained in an interview how the company’s technology can improve lithium mining operations. “A lot of lithium being mined today around the world is coming from underground aquifers that store the lithium brine. The challenge is that the lithium is surrounded by other minerals and salts, requiring chemical ‘tweezers’ to pluck out that lithium. What we can do is, at multiple places in that process, we can concentrate that lithium-containing water stream, which makes it far easier for these miners to handle the volumes they need to extract that lithium.”
An experienced management team with technical expertise leads the company towards further refining and deploying its technology. The team includes experts in materials science, chemistry and engineering. Additional experts in corporate administration and financing round out the leadership team to lead the company toward its goals.
Company Highlights
- Forward Water Technologies has developed a patented wastewater treatment technology that reduces wastewater volume and improves reusability across multiple industries, including mining and food manufacturing.
- The company’s Forward Osmosis (FO) technology disrupts the traditional method of wastewater disposal by reducing the amount of waste that must be transported and disposed of, directly reducing costs.
- The FO technology also improves water reusability by up to 95 percent, reducing the expense of importing water for industrial processes.
- The Forward Water Technologies Li-FO™ process is applicable in the lithium mining sector by improving concentration by up to 20 times, allowing organizations to improve extraction efficiency.
- The company has partnered with a lithium-brine extraction operation to evaluate its Li-FO™ technology.
- Forward Water Technologies is in early negotiations to deliver an FWTC forward osmosis pilot system on-site in Chile to support a customer's lithium extraction process.
- Forward Water Technologies has licensed specific intellectual property from FUJIFILM Corporation to solidify the protection of its water treatment technology platform.
- The company has been contracted by CleanTech Lithium to provide advisory services for the support and development of CleanTech Lithium's direct lithium extraction processes in Chile.
- An experienced management team with a blend of relevant technical expertise leads the company toward refining and marketing its technology.
Key Project
Forward Osmosis Water Treatment
Forward Osmosis is a naturally occurring process in which water is spontaneously drawn across a membrane when one solution is higher in salt concentration than the other. The difference in salinity, known as the osmotic gradient, creates a low-energy water treatment process.
Forward Water Technologies has leveraged the naturally occurring process to innovate its patented, three-step FO technology, enabling a 95 percent wastewater reduction and 95 percent water recovery.
Project Highlights:
- Patented Three-Step Process: Forward Water Technologies FO process achieves low-energy and high-rate water extraction with a unique three-step design:
- Water Extraction: Water is drawn across the FO membrane into a salt draw solution. The combination of the patented draw solution and unique membrane “locks” the draw solution on one side of the membrane, creating a true closed-loop process.
- Water/Salt Separation: Next, a switchable water salt (SWS) achieves water/salt separation as low-grade heat is applied, and it phases from liquid to gas. As the gas leaves the solution, clean water is left behind. The energy necessary for this step is often found in many facilities in the form of waste heat.
- Salt Draw Reconcentration: Finally, as the gas leaves the solution, it is captured within the closed-loop system and is passively cooled, causing it to phase back into liquid form as an SWS. The SWS liquid is collected and recycled back to the front of the membranes in the water extraction step, creating a continuous process.
- Widely Applicable Water Treatment: The low-energy process allows organizations across several industries to improve water reclamation and reduce wastewater by up to 95 percent. Additionally, the process allows for up to 20 times concentration, making the process amenable to lithium-brine extraction and other potential applications.
- Significant Cost Savings: The primary value proposition for the FO process is cost reduction in wastewater transportation and disposal. With the process in place, more water is reclaimed for reuse in manufacturing, which reduces the raw volume of wastewater that must be transported and disposed of.
Management Team
Howie Honeyman - Chief Executive Officer and President
Dr. Howie Honeyman has 20 years of experience commercializing new technologies at Xerox, Cabot, E Ink, Natrix Separations and as former CTO of GreenCentre Canada. Honeyman commercialized high-capacity, high-throughput membranes for bioprocessing as SVP of Natrix Separations, which has since been acquired by Millipore-Sigma. Since 2015, Honeyman has been leading Forward Water to become a premier wastewater treatment solution. Honeyman is also an inventor of record on over 50 US patents and holds a PhD in chemistry from the University of Toronto.
Michael Willetts - Chief Financial Officer
Michael Willetts has over 25 years in financial leadership roles primarily in manufacturing, from large multinational businesses to startups, both public and private. He previously worked as an engineer in the automotive industry before entering into finance at Ford Motor Company. Willets went on to progressively larger finance roles in several international automotive suppliers (Textron, GKN, DSM) and Canadian manufacturers (Armtec, Stronach International, AirBoss of America). Willetts is currently providing fractional CFO services through WD Numeric Corporate Services in the manufacturing, SaaS and cannabis industries. Willetts graduated with a BASc, BComm and MBA from the University of Windsor.
Wayne Maddever - Chief Operating Officer
Dr. Wayne Maddever received his Ph.D. in materials science engineering from the University of Toronto. Since 1985, he has held senior executive management positions with technically based businesses in start-up, turnaround or acquisition situations where his skills in change management have brought considerable success in the commercialization of new technologies. His experience in both private and public companies, domestically and internationally, spans a broad variety of industries, including bio and advanced materials, precision manufacturing, recycling, waste-to-energy and medical devices. He holds a number of patents in several fields. He is a fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering. In addition to his duties as COO of Forward Water, he is currently portfolio manager at Bioindustrial Innovation Canada, one of the major shareholders of Forward Water.
Grant Thornley - VP Engineering Solution Sales
Grant Thornley is a business strategist with more than 25 years of experience. He has developed and grown international water/wastewater markets through innovative growth hacking techniques and processes, synergized with product development and positioning, data analytics and acceleration of go-to-market strategies through alliances and partnerships. Having expertise in chemical, mechanical and biological treatment processes as well as designing hundreds of municipal and industrial applications, Thornley brings a knowledge-to-action approach to helping clients solve problems and realize new opportunities in water reuse, energy conservation and CO2 reduction.
Leonard Seed - Director of Engineering & Operations
Leonard Seed has over 18 years of experience developing and commercializing new water and wastewater treatment technologies, primarily in a start-up environment. Seed is named as an inventor on over seven patents and has authored several publications. Seed is a professional engineer and has an MSc in environmental engineering from the University of Guelph. Leonard holds inventorship on seven US patents and is an instructor at Mohawk College teaching aspects of water treatment technologies and leading research efforts on forward osmosis.
Philip Jessop - Executive Research Director
Dr. Philip Jessop is a professor and Canada Research Chair of Green Chemistry at the Department of Chemistry, Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. He also serves as the technical director of GreenCentre Canada and executive research director at Forward Water Technologies. After his Ph.D. (British Columbia, 1991) and a postdoctoral appointment (Toronto, 1992), he became a contract researcher in Japan working for R. Noyori (Nobel Prize 2001). As a professor at the University of California-Davis (1996-2003) and since then at Queen’s, he has studied green solvents and the chemistry of carbon dioxide. Distinctions include the NSERC Polanyi Award (2008), Killam Research Fellowship (2010), Canadian Green Chemistry & Engineering Award (2012), Eni Award (2013), Fellowship in the Royal Society of Canada (2013), a Canada Research Chair Tier 1 (2013 to 2020), and the NSERC Brockhouse Prize (2019). He serves as chair of the editorial board for the journal Green Chemistry, has chaired three international conferences, and helped create GreenCentre Canada, a national center of excellence for the commercialization of green chemistry technologies. Forward Water is a spin-off company based on Dr. Jessop’s switchable solvents.
Quarterly Activities Report for the Period Ended 31 March 2024
Highlights
Solonópole Project, Ceará, Brazil
- Anomalous lithium values above 100 ppm (and up to 631 ppm) found in 383 soil samples within existing and new target areas.
- Integration and interpretation of these soil sample results with data from geophysics, geological mapping (138 line-km), trenching and RC drilling (~2,000m) further enhance prospectivity of existing and new targets.
- Combined datasets confirmed several swarms of pegmatite bodies striking in a NE-SW and E-W directions and identified new high priority areas.
- Nira interpreted to be the most prospective new target, with 180 soil samples of >100 ppm Li and as high as 524 ppm Li covering an area of at least 1km2.
- Nira also features 17 pegmatite outcrops with average widths of up to 30 meters and strike lengths from 200m to 600m.
- Planning for the next follow-up drilling campaign is underway.
Napperby Project, Northern Territory, Australia
- Oceana’s Napperby Project covers some of Arunta Province’s hottest granites plutons, the Wangala Granite (uranium) and Ennugan Mountains Granite (uranium/thorium).
- Both granite plutons show outstanding uranium/thorium ratios and are almost fully encapsulated within Napperby’s EL32836 and ELA32841.
- Follow-up exploration activities will target uranium and Rare Earth Elements (REEs) in parallel with Lithium-Caesium-Tantalum (LCT) pegmatites.
Corporate
- Experienced geologist and mining executive, Aidan Platel, appointed as non- executive director.
- Brazilian-based geologist, Mike Sousa, appointed as Exploration Manager and Competent Person.
- The Company remains well-funded with cash at 31 March of ~$2.67m.
OPERATIONS
Solonópole Project, Ceará State, Brazil
The Solonópole Project area is located in the state of Ceará, north-eastern Brazil and consists of ten (10) exploration permits covering approximately 124km2 (Figure 1), owned by Oceana’s subsidiary Ceará Litio. The project is approximately three to four hours by road from the state capital Fortaleza and deep-water port of Pecém, and is well serviced by sealed highways and high voltage electricity.
Figure 1: Solonópole Project permits and targets drilled in May – June 2023 (red dots)
Large-Scale Soil Sampling and Geological Mapping at Solonópole Lithium Project
The large-scale infill soil sampling program that commenced in March 2023 continued over the project area (Figure 2). The optimized sampling grids are along 200m spaced lines with 25m sampling stations, aligned north south to cut across all typical pegmatite strike directions in this area.
As at 31 March 2024, over 10,300 soil samples had been collected from Solonópole and 8,741 soil samples had been analysed by X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF) for Lithium-Caesium-Tantalum (LCT) pathfinders, of which 1,908 soil samples have lab results validated by Oceana´s internal QA/QC. Anomalous lithium values above 100 ppm and up to 631 ppm were found in 383 soil samples within existing and new target areas.
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