The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
Jonathon Naylor Editor The search for a corporate partner for the planned bioleach plant in Snow Lake could soon be over. That's the word from BacTech Environmental Corp., the Toronto-based company behind the state-of-the-art project. 'At present, we are busy identifying a potential partner for the Snow Lake project,' BacTech president and CEO Ross Orr wrote in a recent e-mail to investors. 'In several cases, we have moved to the due diligence stage and we hope to wrap up a new partner early in 2013.' BacTech's bioleach plant will neutralize and extract gold from mine tailings in Snow Lake. The hope is to then use the facility to treat and recover metals from other tailings scattered throughout northern Manitoba. See 'Equity...' on pg. 10 Continued from pg. 6 Since BacTech is trying to avoid dilution at the corporate level, Orr said all discussions involve selling half of its Snow Lake subsidiary in exchange for the equity capital to build the plant. 'Our specialty is the technology and how to apply it,' he wrote. Orr called 2012 a year of 'great strides' for the project, noting that one shareholder pumped $1.35 million into the cause. But moving forward, BacTech has its sights set far beyond Snow Lake. 'In the last quarter of 2012, we were very active pursuing additional opportunities,' Orr wrote. 'We visited Bulgaria and met with government officials to discuss some of their pressing environmental issues. We do know there are many sites in need of reclamation in that country.' Also last year, BacTech's chief financial officer took part in a resource show in Germany. 'It was refreshing to see that the Europeans understand what we are doing and they GET IT,' Orr wrote. 'Living in an area where the population occupies a relatively large percentage of the land has driven them to develop state of the art technologies for dealing with energy, waste and pollution. We were introduced to numerous projects in that part of the world but, for now, our focus is on Snow Lake.' Added Orr: 'We firmly believe that Snow Lake is the tip of the iceberg and that a successful launch will lead to many more opportunities in the coming years.' BacTech expects to spend $18 million to $20 million to construct its Snow Lake plant. The company had hoped to commission the plant in 2012, but that timeline proved impractical.
