Western Magnesium aiming to become world’s low-cost producer of eco-friendly, high-quality magnesium

Western Magnesium Corp wants to re-establish magnesium manufacturing in the USA. The company wants to become the world’s low-cost producer of eco-friendly and high-quality magnesium, which is a strategic metal. It has developed a proprietary technology that can generate magnesium, which is used in a range of industries from transport to energy,  with low labor, high automation, low energy, and - significantly - zero toxic byproducts and waste. Proactive recently caught up with Western Magnesium CEO Sam Ataya to find out more about the company and its plans. Proactive: Can you give a brief overview of the history of Western Magnesium Corp? Sam Ataya: The company has spent 10 years of stealth research and development of our proprietary technology in British Columbia, Canada.  Our R&D team consists of world-leading authorities in magnesium production and expertise which is second to none.  Once we proved concept it was time to bring in a team to start our transition from R&D into the production phase of the company.  Thus, we began the steps by redomiciling the company to the US and adding in the necessary components to deal with the government from local, State, Federal levels to the end-users of our magnesium production. Therefore, we announced that we are opening an office in Washington DC. Can you tell us a little more about how your proprietary technology to generate magnesium metal works? Rather than batch, our proprietary technology utilizes a continuous silicothermic process to produce (99.8%) pure magnesium. Our process begins with mined dolomite (calcium-magnesium carbonate), which is crushed and calcined (thermal decomposition) to make Magnesium Oxide (MgO). The MgO is combined with ferrosilicon, a reductant and a catalyst, and formed into briquettes. The briquettes are fed into the newly designed continuous reactor, where they are heated.  This allows the silicon to react with oxygen and reduce the magnesium to metal. The vaporized Mg is collected and removed using a proprietary Mg-recovery system designed specifically for this process as molten Mg. In our process the continuous nature eliminates the temperature cycles, so much less energy is required. The company uses electric-powered calciner, heat-recovery systems and a method for recovering CO2 from the calcination step which further reduces the environmental footprint and raises efficiency. Can you update us on the pilot plant status and when you hope to produce first magnesium? We are quite excited about the development of our new proprietary reactor. Our next-generation reactor is ahead of schedule and will begin testing in the next 30 days. Our commercialized pilot plant is on its final build-out stage with all the equipment and supplies having been finalized and ordered. This allows the operations team to produce an updated baseline schedule.  Ancillary feed equipment has arrived at the facility and has begun operation, allowing the operations team to begin optimizing the feed material composition and size. When the commercialized pilot plant is fully assembled and operation with our new proprietary reactor, we will be able to scale up production of the magnesium metal.  Think of it like a car, for example, the reactor is the engine and the plant like the body of the car.  We are going to test the engine before dropping it into the car which is the plant. Once the plant is fully scalable the magnesium metal produced will initially be for the purposes of certification and to engage potential clients with various industries such as automotive, aerospace, casting and Department of Defense, with the goal of establishing long-term agreements.  What other news flow might investors expect in the near term? These are in no specific order: Production of metal Opening of Washington office Certification of metal Announcing of first commercial site location Becoming reporting in the US Purchase Orders Off-take agreements Independent engineering stamp of process Commercial plant financing Up-listing Commercial pilot plant fully operational running continuously Data sent to an independent engineering firm IP valuation Contact the author at giles@proactiveinvestors.com