Rapid ramp up yielding progressive results
supporting company's commercialization of its first-of-kind battery
metals extraction technologies for both recycling and primary
claystone resources
RENO,
Nev., May 15, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- American
Battery Technology Company (ABTC) (NASDAQ: ABAT), an
integrated critical battery materials company that is
commercializing its technologies for both primary battery minerals
manufacturing and secondary minerals lithium-ion battery recycling,
announced its third quarter fiscal year (FY) 2024 financial
results, for the period ending March 31,
2024.
ABTC is concurrently commercializing its first-of-kind
technologies for both its battery recycling operations and its
battery grade lithium hydroxide refining from primary claystone
with an accelerated fast-to-market approach. The company's
dual business model is unique to the battery metals industry and
provides the ability to increase the battery metals supply for
North America with both primary
and secondary resources.
During this quarter, the company added an additional shift of
operations to its battery recycling facility, manufactured recycled
materials, and subsequent to quarter end entered into agreements to
sell these recycled metal products to domestic strategic customers.
Concurrently, the company has also made great strides in its rapid
ramp up of its unconventional claystone to battery grade lithium
hydroxide demonstration facility.
Project highlights include:
- ABTC completed construction and continued ramping of production
at its first integrated lithium-ion battery recycling facility in
Nevada. This facility produces
multiple streams of recycled battery material products, and when
fully ramped has the ability to process approximately 20,000 metric
tonnes per year of battery feedstock.
- The company successfully added a second shift of operations
during this quarter, and is in the process of adding a third shift
as it progresses towards 24/7 operations.
- The company announced that it has been ramping operations and
has successfully completed a fixed duration run of the facility at
over 115% of its design rate.
- The recycling facility has been producing recycled products and
the company has entered into agreements to sell these products to
domestic strategic customers.
- In March 2024, ABTC was selected
for award of a competitive tax credit for approximately
$20 million under the U.S. Department
of Energy/IRS 48C Qualifying Energy Project Credit program, which
may be used to reimburse the company for a portion of capital
expenses already spent on this recycling facility and also for
future equipment purchases. The company is in negotiations for the
near-term monetization of this tax credit as these 48C credits are
transferrable.
- In March 2024, ABTC was selected
for award of an additional competitive tax credit for approximately
$40 million under the U.S. Department
of Energy/IRS 48C Qualifying Energy Project Credit program to
support the construction of a second lithium-ion battery recycling
facility. The company is in negotiations for the near-term
monetization of this tax credit as these 48C credits are
transferrable.
- ABTC continues to execute on its competitively awarded
$10 million U.S. Department of Energy
(DOE) grant to support its $20
million project for the commercialization of its next
generation of advanced battery recycling technologies.
- ABTC released an updated Initial Assessment (Preliminary
Economic Assessment) of its Tonopah Flats Lithium Project that
includes an 8% increase in the average lithium grade and a 7%
reduction in average production costs, while utilizing only that
portion of the resource classified as Measured or Indicated for the
economic analysis.
- The company completed construction and started commissioning of
its claystone to lithium hydroxide (LiOH) demonstration facility
which utilizes ABTC's internally-developed processes to access the
lithium housed in its unconventional resource at the Tonopah
Lithium Flats Project to manufacture battery grade lithium
hydroxide monohydrate product for sale to domestic strategic
customers.
- ABTC continues to execute on its competitively awarded
$57.5 million U.S. DOE grant to
support its $115 million project for
the construction of its commercial-scale lithium hydroxide
refinery.
Financial highlights include:
- As of March 31, 2024, the company
had total cash on hand of $6
million.
- Government grant funding increased to $3
million for the nine months ended March 31, 2024, compared to $0.7 million during the same period of the prior
year. Out of the current period's $3
million in grant funding, $0.8
million was recorded as an offset to fixed assets, as
reimbursements related to equipment purchases, and $2.2 million was recorded as an offset to
research and development costs within the condensed consolidated
statement of operations.
- As the company has completed the construction of the initial
phase of its battery recycling facility and of its claystone to
LiOH demonstration facility, there was a significant decrease in
cash used for the acquisition of property, construction, equipment,
mineral rights and water rights for the nine months ended
March 31, 2024 of $11.4 million, compared to $18 million during the same period of the prior
year.
- Out of the approximately $25
million received from the convertible notes issued in
August 2023, the company has used
cash to pay down the obligation which currently has an outstanding
principal balance of only approximately $9
million as of May 15,
2024.
Spurred by U.S. Department of Energy grant awards and recent 48C
tax credit awards, ABTC is on-track for introducing Inflation
Reduction Act compliant and responsibly-sourced, battery grade
metals into the North American supply chain in support of
diminishing reliance on imported materials from Foreign Entities of
Concern.
Commercial Battery Recycling Operations
ABTC continues to advance its battery recycling systems to
fully-ramp operations at its first commercial-scale lithium-ion
battery recycling facility. In October
2023, ABTC completed the construction and installation of
the initial phase of its battery recycling systems and has
continued to ramp operations. This recycling facility is designed
to process over 20,000 metric tonnes per year of battery feedstock
materials when fully ramped. As part of the company's continued
ramp-up process, ABTC recently demonstrated a fixed duration
operation at a steady-state throughput of greater than 115% of its
maximum design rate at this facility.
This recycling facility utilizes a first-of-kind integrated set
of recycling processes based on a strategic de-manufacturing
approach that utilizes a deconstruction process combined with a
targeted selective hydrometallurgical process. This system is
agnostic to feedstock form factors and can process lithium-ion
batteries and manufacturing scrap of a variety of sizes and shapes,
and with a wide range of internal chemistries. The first phase of
the recycling process produces recycled products that includes
copper, aluminum, steel, a lithium intermediate, and a black mass
intermediate material, and the integrated second phase will further
refine these materials into battery grade nickel sulfate, cobalt
sulfate, manganese sulfate, and lithium hydroxide.
Tonopah Flats Lithium Project
Battery grade lithium materials are generally manufactured from
conventional resources, which include hard rock spodumene materials
primarily from western Australia
and lithium-rich brines primarily from South America. Currently, the U.S. does
not have large quantities of these developed conventional
resources. In order to significantly increase U.S. production of
battery grade lithium products, ABTC has been developing its
Tonopah Flats Lithium Project with over 10,000 acres of a
lithium-bearing unconventional claystone resource which has been
assessed to be one of the largest lithium resources in the U.S. In
addition to developing this primary resource, ABTC has developed
first-of-kind lithium hydroxide extraction and purification
processes specific to the TFLP claystone material. The company has
constructed and is operating an integrated pilot scale facility to
demonstrate these processes.
Recently the company released an Amended Resource
Estimate and Initial Assessment with Project Economics for the
Tonopah Flats Lithium Project, Esmeralda and Nye Counties, Nevada, USA (Amended Initial
Assessment) which summarizes potential mining methods,
infrastructure, metallurgy, processing, engineering, and project
economics for the classified Measured and Indicated Tonopah Flats
Lithium Project resources to supply the planned commercial-scale
lithium hydroxide monohydrate (LHM) refinery.
The construction and operation of ABTC's LiOH pilot
demonstration plant are supported by a competitively
awarded grant from the U.S. Department of Energy, and the
design and construction of its LIOH commercial-scale refinery is
supported by an additional grant from U.S. DOE.
About American Battery Technology Company
American Battery Technology Company (ABTC), headquartered in
Reno, Nevada, has pioneered
first-of-kind technologies to unlock domestically manufactured and
recycled battery metals critically needed to help meet the
significant demand from the electric vehicle, stationary storage,
and consumer electronics industries. Committed to a circular supply
chain for battery metals, ABTC works to continually innovate and
master new battery metals technologies that power a global
transition to electrification and the future of sustainable
energy.
Qualified Person
The mineral resource estimates presented in the ABTC Tonopah Flats
Initial Assessment were performed by third-party, qualified person
RESPEC, LLC and were classified by geological and quantitative
confidence in accordance with the Securities and Exchange
Commission (SEC) Regulation S-K 1300.
Initial Assessment
Initial Assessment is a preliminary technical and economic study of
the economic potential of all or parts of mineralization to support
the disclosure of mineral resources. The Initial Assessment must be
prepared by a qualified person and must include appropriate
assessments of reasonably assumed technical and economic factors,
together with any other relevant operational factors, that are
necessary to demonstrate at the time of reporting that there are
reasonable prospects for economic extraction. An Initial Assessment
is required for disclosure of mineral resources but cannot be used
as the basis for disclosure of mineral reserves. An Initial
Assessment is preliminary in nature and includes Inferred Mineral
Resources that are considered too speculative geologically to have
the economic considerations applied that would enable them to be
classified as mineral reserves. There is no certainty that the
economic results of an Initial Assessment will be realized.
Inferred Resource
Inferred Mineral Resource is that part of a mineral resource for
which quantity and grade or quality are estimated on the basis of
limited geological evidence and sampling. The level of geological
uncertainty associated with an Inferred Mineral Resource is too
high to apply relevant technical and economic factors likely to
influence the prospects of economic extraction in a manner useful
for evaluation of economic viability. Because an Inferred Mineral
Resource has the lowest level of geological confidence of all
mineral resources, which prevents the application of the modifying
factors in a manner useful for evaluation of economic viability, an
Inferred Mineral Resource may not be considered when assessing the
economic viability of a mining project, and may not be converted to
a mineral reserve.
Indicated Resource
Indicated Mineral Resource is that part of a mineral resource for
which quantity and grade or quality are estimated on the basis of
adequate geological evidence and sampling. The level of geological
certainty associated with an Indicated Mineral Resource is
sufficient to allow a qualified person to apply modifying factors
in sufficient detail to support mine planning and evaluation of the
economic viability of the deposit. Because an Indicated Mineral
Resource has a lower level of confidence than the level of
confidence of a Measured Mineral Resource, an Indicated Mineral
Resource may only be converted to a Probable Mineral Reserve.
Measured Resource
Measured Mineral Resource is that part of a mineral resource for
which quantity and grade or quality are estimated on the basis of
conclusive geological evidence and sampling. The level of
geological certainty associated with a Measured Mineral Resource is
sufficient to allow a qualified person to apply modifying factors,
as defined in this section, in sufficient detail to support
detailed mine planning and final evaluation of the economic
viability of the deposit. Because a Measured Mineral Resource has a
higher level of confidence than the level of confidence of either
an Indicated Mineral Resource or an Inferred Mineral Resource, a
Measured Mineral Resource may be converted to a Proven Mineral
Reserve or to a Probable Mineral Reserve.
Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains "forward-looking statements" within the
meaning of the safe harbor provisions of the U.S. Private
Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All statements, other
than statements of historical fact, are "forward-looking
statements." Although the American Battery Technology Company's
(the "Company") management believes that such forward-looking
statements are reasonable, it cannot guarantee that such
expectations are, or will be, correct. These forward-looking
statements involve a number of risks and uncertainties, which could
cause the Company's future results to differ materially from those
anticipated. Potential risks and uncertainties include, among
others, risks and uncertainties related to the Company's ability to
continue as a going concern; interpretations or reinterpretations
of geologic information, unfavorable exploration results, inability
to obtain permits required for future exploration, development or
production, general economic conditions and conditions affecting
the industries in which the Company operates; the uncertainty of
regulatory requirements and approvals; Internal Revenue Service
treatment of tax credits and other tax incentives; fluctuating
mineral and commodity prices, final investment approval and the
ability to obtain necessary financing on acceptable terms or at
all. Additional information regarding the factors that may cause
actual results to differ materially from these forward-looking
statements is available in the Company's filings with the
Securities and Exchange Commission, including the Annual Report on
Form 10-K for the year ended June 30,
2023. The Company assumes no obligation to update any of the
information contained or referenced in this press release.
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SOURCE American Battery Technology Company