March 7, 2019
Report #8 Gold, Silver and Tellurium in British Columbia, Canada
Company Details
In the C.O.D vein system, the tellurium occurs as a soft silver-grey telluride mineral, a Silver-Tellurium-Gold alloy speculated to be sylvanite (Ag,Au)Te2.
Ximen Mining Corp. 888 Dunsmuir Street – Suite #888 Vancouver, BC, Canada V6C 3K4 Phone: +1 604 488 3900 Email: office@ximenminingcorp.com www.ximenminingcorp.com Shares Issued & Outstanding: 32,179,025
Industry inquiries persuade Ximen‘s partner to re-assay drill core for tellurium Today, Ximen Mining Corp. announced that its option partner for the Gold Drop Project in southern British Columbia has requested tellurium re-analysis of select high-grade core samples from the Fall 2018 drill program targeting the C.O.D Vein. Ximen’s CEO, Chris Anderson, explained in today’s press-release: “Due to the multiple industry inquiries and spiked interest with regards to the Tellurium grades as well as the fact that the Te grades have exceeded upper analytical limits at the Lab (ie 500 G/T Te) the decision was made to re-assay these drill core samples with a focus on obtaining the actual Tellurium grades.” I like the sound of “multiple industry inquiries”. And when digging deeper into the tellurium market, this appears to make all the more sense as global tellurium supply is astonishingly tight while demand has been on the rise for many years. Consequently, the long-time fear of tellurium supply shortages may become a serious reality. Ximen explains:
“Tellurium (Te) remains as one of the rarest elements on earth. Tellurium production has been a by-product of copper and gold mining. The production is limited, estimated to being on the order of 800 metric tonnes per year. According to the USGS total production for 2007 was 107 Mtonnes. Up until recently, the sole use of tellurium has been the alloying of other metals to increase the machinability of copper or to decrease the corrosive action of sulfuric acid on lead. The most significant modern use of tellurium is the Cadmium-telluride (CdTe) photovoltaic solar cells. These solar cells are at the forefront of solar power. One gigawatt (GW) of Cd-Te, at current efficiencies, would require approximately 93 metric tons of tellurium. These cells have the smallest carbon footprint and the shortest energy payback time of all solar cells. The efficiency of technology is constantly improving and the Cd-Te now takes up 5.1% of worldwide PV production.”
Chart Canada (TSX.V)
Canadian Symbol (TSX.V): XIM Current Price: $0.58 CAD (03/06/2019) Market Capitalization: $19 Million CAD
Chart Germany (Frankfurt)
German Symbol / WKN: 1XMA / A2JBKL Current Price: €0.355 EUR (03/06/2019) Market Capitalization: €11 Million EUR
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Report #8 | Ximen Mining Corp.
Excerpts from Ximen’s press-release today: “In the C.O.D vein system, the tellurium occurs as a soft silver-grey telluride mineral. The telluride mineral is a Silver-Tellurium-Gold alloy speculated to be sylvanite. Whenever this mineral is observed in the drill core the interval has elevated silver, gold and tellurium values.” “Fourteen drill core samples from the high-grade gold and silver intersections of drill holes COD-18-67 and COD-1870 returned greater than the upper analytical limit of 500 g/t for tellurium during initial analysis (four acid ICP-MS analysis by ALS Canada Ltd. in North Vancouver). As a result, the tellurium weighted average grade for these intersections could not be determined. The Company has requested ALS Canada Ltd. to re-analyze these samples for tellurium.”
“Multiple drill core samples from drill holes COD18-67 and COD18-70 exceeded the upper 500 grams per tonne (g/t) analytical limit for tellurium. These samples returned high grade values for gold and silver. These samples will be re-analyzed to determine tellurium grades.“ (Source: Ximen Mining news release of March 7, 2019)
“The highlights of the 2018 Fall drill program are drill hole COD18-67 which intersected 129 g/t gold and 1,154 g/t silver over 7.28 meters core length and drill hole COD18-70 which intersected 107.5 g/t gold and 880 g/t silver over 6.90 meters core length (News Releases of January 11and 18, 2019).” Intersections for 2017 and 2018 diamond drill holes at the C.O.D. vein include the following (please refer to the Ximen‘s website for news releases announcing these results):
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Report #8 | Ximen Mining Corp.
Cadmium telluride (CdTe) solar panels belong to the second generation of photovoltaic (PV) technologies and are already the second-most utilized solar material in the world, after silicon. However, these CdTe “thin-film“ semiconductor layers are not only cheaper to mass produce but also far better at absorbing light than silicon and have proven to be superior in the field under real conditions, especially at elevated temperatures and humidity. CdTe solar panels are already a mature industrial technology with many manufacturers and service provides around the planet competing for feedstock, especially tellurium. Major technological advances in CdTe solar modules over the last years lead to mass production and are already preferred for utility applications and large-scale solar parks. Residential applications should follow now and strongly drive the demand for tellurium to all-time highs. According to Wikipedia: “Cadmium telluride PV is the only thin-film technology with lower costs than conventional solar cells made of crystalline silicon in multi-kilowatt systems. On a lifecycle basis, CdTe PV has the smallest carbon footprint, lowest water use and shortest energy payback time of all solar technologies. CdTe‘s energy payback time of less than a year allows for faster carbon reductions without short-term energy deficits. CdTe photovoltaics are used in some of the world‘s largest photovoltaic power stations, such as the Topaz Solar Farm. With a share of 5.1% of worldwide PV production, CdTe technology accounted for more than half of the thin film market in 2013. A prominent manufacturer of CdTe thin film technology is the company First Solar, based in Tempe, Arizona.“ With a current market capitalization of $5.5 billion USD, First Solar Inc. is the most salient leader in PV innovation and the world‘s largest CdTe PV manufacturer. The NASDAQ listed company is also known to be very active
With 550 MW installed capacity and an annual net output of 1,287 GW·h, the Desert Sunlight Solar Farm in Riverside County, California, is one of the world‘s largest and most efficient solar parks. It uses approximately 8.8 million CdTe modules made by First Solar. from raw material sourcing through end-of-life module recycling. According to “First Solar Owns a Gold, Silver and Tellurium Mine?” (2011): ”First Solar has been looking for suppliers who would focus on mining tellurium. Capital Mining in Australia announced in May 2008 that First Solar was sending a geologist to check out a newly discovered tellurium deposit. “There’s a limited amount of tellurium in the world and First Solar needs a significant portion of it. It would make sense for them to try to lock up supply and increase their security,” said National Bank Financial analyst Rupert Merer in a Reuters article. Estimates vary, but annual global tellurium production is about 160 tons to 260 tons, with demand potentially reaching 800 tons by 2013. At 8 grams of tellurium per 2 foot by 4 foot panel, that’s roughly 100 metric tons of tellurium for each gigawatt of PV production.” First Solar’s 2019 Guidance projects a production volume between 5.2 and 5.5 GW. The company is known as one of the largest tellurium buyers in the world. In 2018, Canada based 5N Plus announced a contract to supply First
Solar with tellurium and industry sources believe “the figure to be around 160-180 tonnes of tellurium per year, amounting to approximately 480-540 tonnes over the full duration of the contract [through to 2021]. As a result, market participants have expressed concerns over supply with a significant volume of tellurium - around 30% of total worldwide production per year - now effectively removed from the market for the next three years.” While market studies are forecasting steady growth in demand for tellurium over the next years, supply may be declining because most tellurium is produced as a byproduct during copper recovery and refining. According to an USGS Report (2017), the world currently depends on copper mining for roughly 90% of its tellurium supply. However, copper grades in mines around the world continue to decline and are increasingly turning to different kinds of recovery methods to produce from lower grade ore, which largely bypass any recovery of tellurium. This global copper trend is poised to seriously impact tellurium output in the future.
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According to “Solar Power: Innovation, Sustainability, and Environmental Justice” (University of California, 2019): “Tellurium occurs in the earth’s crust at the rate of only one part per billion. It is about a thousand times as scarce as the rare earth elements that are subject to ongoing trade disputes among the U.S., China, Malaysia, and Japan. The availability of and market for tellurium have interesting implication for the photopholtaic industry, in part because one photopholtaic manufacturer dominates the market. First Solar, of Tempe, Arizona, currently purchases 40% of the total volume of tellurium sold.
Report #8 | Ximen Mining Corp.
According to Energysage (2019): “Simply put, solar panel efficiency (expressed as a percentage) quantifies a solar panel’s ability to convert sunlight into electricity. Given the same amount of sunlight shining for the same duration of time on two solar panels with different efficiency ratings, the more efficient panel will produce more electricity than the less efficient panel. In practical terms, for two solar panels of the same physical size, if one has a 21% efficiency rating and the other has a 14% efficiency rating, the 21% efficient panel will produce 50% more kilowatt hours (kWh) of electricity under the same conditions as the 14% efficient panel. Thus, maximizing energy use and bill savings is heavily reliant on having top-tier solar panel efficiency. Many consumers and people in the solar industry consider solar panel efficiency to be the most important criterion when assessing a solar panel’s quality.“
In 2010 First Solar agreed to buy a significant portion of high-purity tellurium from Apollo Solar Energy, a Chinese tellurium supplier operating open-pit mines on its Dashuigou property in Sichuan Province. This is the only mine in the world where tellurium is the primary product. Most other tellurium supplies are secondary or tertiary products of copper or gold. Recovery is largely driven by the price; as the price goes up mines are more willing to put in the effort to recover tellurium from ores. The DOE [US Department of Energy] expects that by 2031 there will need to be additional main-product tellurium mines and an ample secondary supply of recycled CdTe photopholtaic modules. In 2011, financial analysts observed that First Solar had acquired a gold-tellurium mine in Mexico to secure future cadmium telluride supplies. First Solar’s efforts to secure a tellurium supply are bolstered by the reuse and recovery of tellurium from manufacturing scrap and end-of-life photopholtaic modules.”
Bottom Line It will be in interesting to learn more about the actual tellurium grades with the re-analysis of select drill core from Ximen’s Gold Drop Project (currently under option agreement to GGX Gold Corp). Indeed, solar panel manufacturers, or other kinds of industry players, may
First Solar produces the world‘s most efficient CdTe PV modules. According to Forbes (2017): “While First Solar says that the efficiency of its Series 6 modules will likely stand at over 18% at launch, efficiencies could improve to over 19% in the next few years, as the company executes on its technology roadmap. We could see stronger improvements in the long run, as First Solar’s Cd-Te technology has a higher theoretical upper limit for conversion efficiencies compared to silicon-based panels. Moreover, First Solar has a solid track record of translating record cell and record module efficiencies into production. It’s current record cell efficiency standard currently stands at 22.1%.” show some interest in tellurium as a highly sought-after feedstock for CdTe solar panels. Moreover, the recent drill results at Gold Drop also showed high silver grades. This may also be of interest to PV manufacturers as silver is also used in solar panels (when looking closely at a module, notice the thin lines of silver metal running across the dark photovoltaic matter).
In 2011, the global solar industry consumed about 11% of the global silver supply. By 2018, that number was over 20%. “Silver has the lowest electrical resistance among all metals at standard temperatures, meaning its substitutes cannot hope to match it in terms of energy output per panel.” (“The Role of Silver in the Green Revolution”, The Silver Institute, 2018)
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Report #8 | Ximen Mining Corp.
Previous Coverage Report #7: “Ximen Hires B.C. Mining Expert Dr. Mathew Ball“ Report #6: “Location is Key for Ximen‘s Treasure Mountain Project“ Report #5: “The Unprecedented GoldSilver-Tellurium Strikes in the Historic Greenwood Mining Camp Continue“ Report #4: “Record-Breaking Gold Hit in Southern British Columbia“ Report #3: “Strong drill results and appreciating precious metals prices may herald golden times for Ximen Mining“ Report #2: “Ximen Mining reveals striking drill core observations ahead of assays“ Report #1: “Ximen Mining: Hunting for Multi-Million Ounces in British Columbia“
Link to updated chart (15 min. delayed): http://schrts.co/nVvegNqV
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Report #8 | Ximen Mining Corp.
Disclaimer and Information on Forward Looking Statements
flect new events or circumstances, except as required by law.
Rockstone Research, Ximen Mining Corp. (“Ximen“) and Zimtu Capital Corp. caution investors that any forward-looking information provided herein is not a guarantee of future results or performance, and that actual results may differ materially from those in forward-looking information as a result of various factors. The reader is referred to the Ximen´s public filings for a more complete discussion of such risk factors and their potential effects which may be accessed through the Ximen´s documents filed on SEDAR at www.sedar. com. All statements in this report, other than statements of historical fact, should be considered forward-looking statements. Statements in this report that are forward looking include that there may be a tellurium supply shortage in the future; that solar panel manufacturers, or other kinds of industry players, may show interest in tellurium as a highly sought-after feedstock for CdTe solar panels; that Ximen‘s partner’s silver may also be of interest to PV manufacturers as silver is also used in solar panels; that residential applications for solar panels should start now and strongly drive the demand for tellurium to all-time highs; and that supply of tellerium may be declining. These forward-looking statements are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual events or results to differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking information. Risks that could change or prevent these statements from coming to fruition include that Ximen or its partners may not raise sufficient funds to carry out their plans; changing costs for exploration and other matters; increased capital costs; interpretations based on current data that may change with more detailed information; potential process methods and mineral recoveries assumption based on limited test work and by comparison to what are considered analogous deposits may prove with further test work not to be comparable; the availability of labour, equipment and markets for the products produced; world and local prices for metals and minerals; that joint venture terms may be changed or no agreement is reached; and even if there are considerable resources on the company’s properties or on those under control of GGX Gold, they may not be minable profitably; that other methods of making solar cells may be found that are cheaper or more efficient, reducing demand for tellerium; tellerium may be found in larger quantities if sustained efforts are made by mining companies; tellerium may not be in increased demand; and prices for tellerium may not rise. The writer assumes no responsibility to update or revise such information to re-
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Author Profile & Contact Stephan Bogner (Dipl. Kfm., FH) Rockstone Research 8260 Stein am Rhein, Switzerland Phone: +41 44 5862323 Email: sb@rockstone-research.com Stephan Bogner studied Economics, with specialization in Finance & Asset Management, Production & Operations, and Entrepreneurship & International Law, at the International School of Management (Dortmund, Germany), the European Business School (London, UK) and the University of Queensland (Brisbane, Australia). Under Prof. Dr. Hans J. Bocker, Stephan completed his diploma thesis (“Gold In A Macroeconomic Context With Special Consideration Of The Price Formation Process”) in 2002. A year later, he marketed and translated into German Ferdinand Lips‘ bestseller “Gold Wars“, After working in Dubai’s commodity markets for 5 years, he now lives in Switzerland and is the CEO of Elementum International AG specialized in duty-free storage of gold and silver bullion in a high-security vaulting facility within the St. Gotthard Mountain in central Switzerland. Rockstone Research is specialized in capital markets and publicly listed companies. The focus is set on exploration, development, and production of resource deposits, as well as cannabis and technology ventures. Through the publication of basic geological and stock market knowledge, the individual company and sector reports receive a background in order for the reader to be inspired to conduct further due diligence and to consult with a financial advisor. All Rockstone reports are being made accessible free of charge, whereas it is always to be construed as non-binding research and is addressed solely to a readership that is knowledgeable about the risks, experienced with stock markets, and acting on one’s own responsibility. For more information and sign-up for free email newsletter, please visit: www.rockstone-research.com