Innovation Mining Inc. is a forward thinking company that is revolutionizing the gold mining industry with its eco-friendly and cost-effective alternative to cyanide.
Lyndsay Malchuk with Stockhouse Publishing recently caught up with CEO Duane Nelson to talk further about their innovation approach, which not only promises to enhance sustainability, but it also aims to capture a significant portion of the $260 billion gold market in the mining sector.
The following is a transcription of the above video, and The Market Online has edited it for clarity.
Lyndsay: Let’s just ease into this conversation. Can give us just a quick highlight of what Innovation Mining does and really why should be people be taking notice?
Duane: We’ve developed an alternative to cyanide for use in the gold mining sector. It’s very important as cyanide is now used in the production of almost 90% of all gold produced globally.
Cyanide is very effective, but it does come with some pretty significant environmental risks. So we’ve delivered the same performance of cyanide at the same price, but without the toxicity.
It’s crucial for the future of sustainable mining and we’re proud to be at the forefront of that change.
Lyndsay: That is great news right out the gate. Let’s talk about the market potential.
With the global gold mining sector market size estimated as mentioned, $260 billion by 2032. How do you see your technology capturing a significant share of this market?
Duane: Over 90% of that market, as I said before, produces by using cyanide. That’s over $2 billion worth of cyanide that’s been spent annually on the gold mining sector.
Our solution offers the same performance at the same price or lower price in some cases. This makes it an easy switch for mining companies due to the fact that it mimics the basic properties of cyanide and the processes are almost identical. That means that they can do a seamless switch to our solution without much cost.
Lyndsay: So understanding the technology that goes into new approaches, that can be a bit of a brain twist.
Can you explain how your eco-friendly alternative to cyanide works and why is it considered disruptive?
Duane: The solution actually mimics, as I said before, the chemical properties of cyanide in many ways.
It recovers the gold into solution, dissolves it, and it’s a very effective. It produces a very stable gold complex and that could be extracted using carbon, simple carbon absorption.
This is what the industry is using today. So we provide the same performance in the same process at the same or lower cost, but in a much more safer and sustainable way.
Lyndsay: One of the challenges then that you must be facing is the resistance to that change. How do you address concerns regarding the readiness and the reliability of cyanide alternative for field deployment?
Duane: That’s a great question. We are very pleased that when we started this whole process, what we wanted to do was to develop a solution that provided the same performance at the same price, but also using the same process.
It’s really important to the miners out there that they don’t have to re-learn, re-develop, re-deploy, or re-engineer any of their sites.
We were looking for a product that provided a seamless transition and we’ve developed that.
Lyndsay: So the big question obviously around environmental impact.
Given the increasing focus on ESG and sustainability initiatives, how does your technology align with these priorities and what are the environmental benefits compared to traditional cyanide use?
Duane: Sustainability is a big driving force now behind the sector and cyanide incidents in gold mining are rare, but when they happen.
The consequences can be dire. Our non-toxic alternative eliminates that risk and helps to reduce the environmental impact of gold mining.
Also many gold deposits worldwide simply remain dormant or untapped due to stringent environmental or political restrictions to cyanide use. Our technology could really help unlock the value of those opportunities allowing for more responsible mining without the associated risks.
Lyndsay: Duane, I have one more question for you. What can investors look forward to from Innovation Mining in the near future?
Duane: We continue to test numerous ores, concentrates and tailings.
We’ve now received independent validation from external laboratories including SGS labs and we continue to explore areas of the chemistry that make it more favorable than cyanide.
In some cases that might be copper oxide deposits or sulfide deposits and so on.
So we continue to do our research and development in those areas.
We also have planned full scale commercial testing in Q3 of 2025 this year following our IPO.
We expect that at that point we’ll see the industry feeling very, very good about the results of that and the fact that it would prove the commercial viability of the process and help to validate that on a full scale basis.
.They are still a privately held company for just a little bit longer and you can learn all about them on their website at innovationmining.com
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