Dorfner Anzaplan to immediately begin product
development and pilot scale production program design
Westwater Resources, Inc. (“Westwater”) (Nasdaq: WWR), an
energy materials development company, announced today that it has
engaged Dorfner Anzaplan of Hirschau, Germany to advance the
development of processes needed to purify graphite concentrates and
to produce the Company’s battery grade products: ULTRA-PMG™,
ULTRA-DEXDG™ and ULTRA-CSPG™.
Dorfner Anzaplan is an internationally recognized and highly
regarded organization that specializes in high-purity industrial
and strategic metals businesses. They employ state-of-the-art
analytical methods and facilities and employ innovative processing
technologies to provide effective solutions tailored to their
clients’ requirements.
Dorfner Anzaplan and Westwater will collaborate to scale up
laboratory sample production to pilot scale production rates,
through new work anticipated to be executed over the next 8-months
including:
- Defining the method, equipment and operating parameters and
requirements for graphite purification;
- Defining operating parameters and equipment for processes
required to manufacture Westwater’s battery graphite products;
and
- Designing Westwater’s pilot program.
Westwater’s pilot scale program will utilize the 20 metric tons
of graphite concentrate feedstock received from our supplier.
This graphite concentrate shipment to
Westwater’s Sylacauga warehouse was previously announced in our
October 15, 2019 press release. The pilot plant resulting
from this work program with Dorfner Anzaplan, will provide various
product sizes of each of the Company’s three principal
battery-grade conductivity enhancement products to potential
clients to advance the prospective clients’ commodity evaluation
and pre-qualification programs. This large-scale sample testing
effort is the next step in the development schedule of the Coosa
Graphite Project as it advances to a commercial production
decision.
Christopher M. Jones, President and Chief Executive Officer,
said, “Partnering with Dorfner Anzaplan provides a significant
advantage to Westwater in the development of battery graphite
materials for customer testing. With this arrangement with Dorfner
Anzaplan, Westwater is taking significant steps forward in becoming
the next US-based producer of battery-grade graphite products for
the energy storage industry.”
Dr. Reiner Haus, Managing Director of Dorfner Anzaplan,
commented, “We are pleased to provide our expertise to the most
advanced natural flake graphite project in the United States and
bring the project to the next level. Participating in the
development processes of Westwater Resources’ Coosa Graphite
Project is a privilege."
About Westwater Resources
WWR is focused on developing energy-related materials. The
Company’s battery-materials projects include the Coosa Graphite
Project — the most advanced natural flake graphite project in the
contiguous United States — and the associated Coosa Graphite Mine
located across 41,900 acres (~17,000 hectares) in east-central
Alabama. In addition, the Company controls lithium mineral
properties in two prospective lithium brine basins in Nevada and
Utah. Westwater’s uranium projects are located in Texas and New
Mexico. In Texas, the Company has two licensed and currently idled
uranium processing facilities and approximately 11,000 acres
(~4,400 hectares) of prospective in-situ recovery uranium projects.
In New Mexico, the Company controls mineral rights encompassing
approximately 188,700 acres (~76,000 hectares) in the prolific
Grants Mineral Belt, which is one of the largest concentrations of
sandstone-hosted uranium deposits in the world. Incorporated in
1977 as Uranium Resources, Inc., Westwater also owns an extensive
uranium information database of historic drill hole logs, assay
certificates, maps and technical reports for the western United
States. For more information, visit www.westwaterresources.net.
About Dorfner Anzaplan
Dorfner is a leading European specialty minerals producer
delivering high quality mineral products to different industries.
ANZAPLAN was founded in 1985 to become the most independent venture
within the Dorfner group of companies while concentrating the
group’s analytical and engineering know-how to serve external
customers.
Extensive know-how in the specialty minerals processing,
including liberation of fine-grained minerals, separation,
flotation and mechanical, chemical and thermal modification derived
from more than a century of day-to-day processing experience at
Dorfner, has been successfully applied in the processing of various
graphite raw materials. Furthermore, ANZAPLAN has detailed
expertise in advanced chemical and thermal purification, upgrading
graphite concentrates to up to 99.9+ purity levels.
Today ANZAPLAN is a specialist with a strong focus on specialty
minerals and metals businesses (e.g. graphite, lithium minerals,
rare earth elements, high purity quartz), providing a one-stop shop
solution across all phases of the economic evaluation and process
development - with technological expertise from its own
laboratories, test center and pilot plant processing facilities
including basic and advanced engineering services.
Purification processes including mechanical, chemical and
thermal refinement technologies are key elements in ANZAPLAN’s and
Dorfner’s daily business to efficiently remove impurities by
targeting high value products.
ANZAPLAN’s experience in the processing of graphite includes
extensive test work carried out for a number of different projects
including flake and hydrothermal vein graphite deposits as well as
processing of synthetic graphite.
Cautionary Statement
This news release contains forward-looking statements within the
meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.
Forward-looking statements are subject to risks, uncertainties and
assumptions and are identified by words such as “expects,”
“estimates,” “projects,” “anticipates,” “believes,” “could,” and
other similar words. All statements addressing events or
developments that WWR expects or anticipates will occur in the
future, including but not limited to statements relating to the
planned startup of and production from the Coosa Graphite
Processing Facility and any future production of graphite feedstock
from the Coosa Graphite Mine, are forward-looking statements.
Because they are forward-looking, they should be evaluated in light
of important risk factors and uncertainties. These risk factors and
uncertainties include, but are not limited to, (a) the Company’s
ability to successfully implement the Coosa Graphite Project
business plan including elements associated with the planned pilot
plant and its processes, and the risk that additional analysis of
the Coosa Graphite Project may result in revisions to that business
plan; (b) the Company’s ability to raise additional capital in the
future; (c) spot price and long-term contract price of graphite,
lithium, vanadium and uranium; (d) risks associated with our
domestic operations; (e) operating conditions at the Company’s
projects; (f) government and tribal regulation of the graphite
industry, the lithium industry, the vanadium industry, the uranium
industry, and the power industry; (g) world-wide graphite, lithium,
vanadium and uranium supply and demand, including the supply and
demand for lithium-based batteries; (h) maintaining sufficient
financial assurance in the form of sufficiently collateralized
surety instruments; (i) unanticipated geological, processing,
regulatory and legal or other problems the Company may encounter in
the jurisdictions where the Company operates or intends to operate,
including in Alabama, Texas, New Mexico, Utah, and Nevada; (j) the
ability of the Company to enter into and successfully close
acquisitions or other material transactions; (k) the results of the
Company’s lithium brine exploration activities at the Columbus
Basin and Sal Rica projects, and the possibility that future
exploration results may be materially less promising than initial
exploration result; (I) any graphite, lithium, vanadium or uranium
discoveries not being in high-enough concentration to make it
economic to extract the metals; (m) currently pending or new
litigation or arbitration; and (n) other factors which are more
fully described in the Company’s Annual Report on Form 10-K,
Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, and other filings with the
Securities and Exchange Commission. Should one or more of these
risks or uncertainties materialize or should any of the Company’s
underlying assumptions prove incorrect, actual results may vary
materially from those currently anticipated. In addition, undue
reliance should not be placed on the Company’s forward-looking
statements. Except as required by law, the Company disclaims any
obligation to update or publicly announce any revisions to any of
the forward-looking statements contained in this news release.
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version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20191121005168/en/
Westwater Resources Contact: Christopher M. Jones,
President & CEO Phone: 303.531.0480 Jeff Vigil, VP Finance
& CFO Phone: 303.531.0481 Email: Info@WestwaterResources.net
Investor Relations Contact: Michael Porter Porter, LeVay and
Rose Phone: 212.564.4700 Email: Westwater@plrinvest.com
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