Transcript:
Hi Phil Hoskins, Managing Director of Evolution Energy Minerals.
I’m really excited to talk about the announcement around the BTR investment.
We first announced the BTR transactions back in August, and we’ve been conducting a substantial due diligence process ever since then. That process has brought BTR down to Australia to meet with consultants involved in our definitive feasibility study. It’s taken us to Tanzania on an extensive site visit with their technical team. It’s taken us to the US in November for several weeks, assessing the US downstream opportunity from a legal and structuring point of view, a site selection point of view, and from a general economics point of view.
And there’s been substantial test work done for spherical graphite for use in lithium-ion batteries, and that is BTR’s strength. They are the global number one producer of battery anode materials based in China, and the results of the test work they’ve undertaken have been excellent substantial yields into spherical graphite, which means that our product is ideally suitable for lithium-ion batteries.
So following the conclusion of due diligence, which has been a fantastic validation not only of the Chilalo project but also of the product quality, we’ve moved into finalizing the arrangements around the investment. We have repriced the investment $0.14 a share, which would result in $3.62 million investment from BTR. And this is the price that recent investors, including Arch, have subscribed at and there’s so many other strategic elements to the transaction with BTR that they bring that we all feel that’s a fair investment price for them to come in at.
As announced, we expect the investment funds to be received by the end of January, and we look forward to BTR’s ongoing support of future financings, including the financing of the Chilalo project. We’re continuing to work through the binding agreements for our downstream collaboration and moving ahead on what we believe is a very exciting vertically integrated strategy with BTR.
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