Scandium International Mining Corp. (SCY.TO) is focused on developing its Nyngan Scandium Project, located in NSW, Australia, into the world's first scandium-only producing mine. The Company filed a NI 43-101 technical report in May 2016, titled "Feasibility Study - Nyngan Scandium Project". The project has received all key approvals, including a development consent and a mining lease, necessary to proceed with project construction.
SCY.TO is also currently soliciting copper industry interest in using ion-exchange technology to extract unrecovered critical metals from existing mine process streams. This program fast-track the concept to make battery-grade nickel and cobalt products, scandium master-alloy product, and other critical metals, from North American sources.
Prior notes: May 2017, September 2017, February 2018, August 2018, February 2018. September 2019. and June 2020.
New Releases
Sept. 1 - Loss of SCY Director - Barry Thomas Davies
Sept. 10 - Receives Positive Final Determination on Nyngan Mining Lease Landowner Objection: Rcceived a Final Determination letter from the Deputy Secretary, Department of Regional NSW, Division of Mining, Exploration and Geoscience (‘the Department’), relating to an objection affecting the Company’s Nyngan Scandium project.
The Findings a) remove objections from most of the Nyngan Project disputed area and b) will allow all of the measured and indicated resource included in the DFS to be reinstated in a Mining Lease grant.
There are further State Courts of Appeal available to the landowner, but the facts supporting this final decision are confirmed by the NSW Department of Primary Industry and follow governing Law. We believe the NSW Government will defend its decisions in any court of appeals to which it would be summoned.
Sept. 24 - Files Patent Application for Use of Scandium in Lithium-Ion Batteries. Filed a provisional patent application with the US Patent Office seeking patent rights on various applications of scandium in lithium ion batteries. It covers a number of enhancements, including doping potential for both anodes and cathodes, and for solid electrolytes.
The intent of this SCY patent filing is to advise the battery industry that scandium is a prospective dopant choice for enhanced performance of LIBs, both under existing design parameters and in particular for next-gen LNMO batteries.
Summary
Nygan Scandium Project
On September 10 2020, a final determination from the Deputy Secretary, Department of Regional NSW, Division of Mining, Exploration and Geoscience restored the original conditions pertaining to the DFS (16.9M tonnes). In essence, it removed prior objections from most of the Nyngan Project's disputed area and restores the original Mining Lease.
LOI Partnerships
No updates were provided on the known LOI willing to test scandium in their applications. (ie. Austal Ltd., Impression Technologies Ltd., PAB Conventry Ltd., Eck Industries Inc., Grainger and Worrall Ltd., Gränges AB, Ohm & Haner Metallwerk GmbH & Co., AML Technologies, and Bronze-Alu Group). This is certainly questionable.
According to the recent MD&A (Nov. 12 2020). The Company has signed no additional industry partnering LOI’s to date in 2020, but does plan to continue the LOI program of introducing scandium for trial testing by partners in the future.
Investors should keep in mind per MD&A: Potential scandium customers insist on these sample testing opportunities, directly in their research facilities or on their shop floor, to ensure their full understanding of the impacts, benefits, and costing implications of introducing scandium into their traditional aluminum feedstocks.
Cooper Industry Partnership.
May 13, 2020, SCY.TO notified the market that it intends to seek partners to demonstrate its critical metal recovery (ion exchange (IX)) technology. This technology is purported to recover scandium, and other critical metals (i.e. cobalt, copper, nickel, and zinc among others) from solvent extraction (SX) raffinate and other acidic waste streams in certain acid leach copper operations. To date (nine months later), no update has been provided related to these activities.
Patents
A patent was filed regarding the usage of Scandium in Lithium Ion Batteries. While the discussion regarding Scadium application is informative (i.e. lithium nickel manganese oxide (LNMO) battery, specifically dopant for stabilization of the manganese in the LNMO cathode, potential stabilization of lithium titanate (LTO) anode materials as well, and use of dopants to improve the conductivity of both anode and cathode materials) the specific patent scope was unclear.
Moreover, the nature of the statement below is rather promotional vs. outlining a scientific processes.
The intent of this SCY patent filing is to advise the battery industry that scandium is a prospective dopant choice for enhanced performance of LIBs, both under existing design parameters and in particular for next-gen LNMO batteries.
Financing
No financing activities were recorded in this period. As per recent MD&A (Nov. 12 2020): Cash position increased during the nine-month period by $30,257 to $145,825 (December 31, 2019 - $115,568) due mainly to the sale of a royalty interest.
At September 30, 2020, the Company had a working capital of $(798,321) including cash of $145,825 as compared to a working capital of $(376,893) including cash of $115,568 at December 31, 2019.
At September 30, 2020, the Company had a total of 34,250,000 stock options exercisable between CAD$0.065 and CAD$0.37 that have the potential upon exercise to generate a total of C$5,664,125 in cash over the next four years,
As a reminder, the last financing (March 2019) was at $0.18 cents for $1.06M with Rothschild Asset Management.
In short
Three releases were issued in the last eight months, meanwhile SCY.TO traded between $0.10 and $0.35 cents.
The reception of the final determination from the Deputy Secretary, Department of Regional NSW, Division of Mining, Exploration and Geoscience regarding the Nygan Scandium project was definitely an achievement.
Otherwise, no updates were provided on LOI and the Copper Industry Partnerships. Nonetheless, in November 2020, SCY.TO saw a significant re-evaluation. Much of it was aligned with an earlier development with Rio Tinto. Indeed, Rio Tinto moved from being able to recover SCY from waste material to actually planning large-scale production.
"We are progressing plans for industrial-scale production that will draw on Rio Tinto's position as a leading aluminium producer to provide not only a reliable source for scandium oxide from North America but also for aluminium scandium
alloys," - Rio Tinto's vice-president for corporate relations Todd Malan.
Thereafter, on January 14, 2021, Rio Tinto disclosed formally entering the Scandium market with the objective of beginning commercial supply of scandium oxide in the second quarter of 2021 and launched Element North 21
Unfortunately, from a public relations perspective SCY.TO did not fully capitalize on these events. Little references to the Rio Tinto developments were made, specifically on how it impacts SCY.TO current initiatives. However, stock options were exercised for about of $320,000 from members of the board of directors and its management team.
Source: CEO.ca
Of late, valuation has been on a downward trend culminating to a closing price of $0.22 cents yesterday. Much of the movement appears aligned with the fact that no news release were issued in the past five months.
The lack of updates on LOI and Copper Industry Partnerships are noted. In addition, absent documentation on SCY.TO's ion exchange (IX) technology, and the three year program demonstrating its AL-SC Master Alloy Manufacturing capabilities along with an outdated investor presentations (almost one year old) does not reflect well.
However, looking back it appears that certain announcements from SCY.TO predated similar ones from Rio-Tinto. For instance, both SCY.TO's February 24, 2020 AL-SC Master Alloy Manufacturing Capabilities AND the May 13, 2020 on Critical Metals Recovery releases came before the Rio Tinto's May 2020 announcements and thereafter. Coincidence?
At this juncture, the relative silence of a company that also has been very active in the past few years in researching critical metal extraction, manufacturing, and industrial applications of Scandium is certainly puzzling. As for now, investors are eagerly awaiting updates LOI and Copper Industry partnerships, as well as, possible off-take.
In any event, SCY.TO's Nygan project could be of strategic importance to Rio Tinto especially given the fact that there is a Non-Managed Operation (Tomago Aluminium) that is relatively close in proximity.
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