MGX Minerals goes ahead with Highbury Energy partnership, announces assay results

MGX Minerals Inc. (CSE:XMG, OTCQB:MGXMF) said it has decided to proceed with its partnership with Highbury Energy Inc. to develop a detailed thermochemical gasification process to extract metals such as nickel, vanadium, cobalt and hydrogen from petroleum coke (petcoke).

In a statement, the company also said it has received the initial vanadium nickel cobalt assay results from Alberta oil sands.

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Petcoke samples were obtained from Alberta oil sands (sample No. 1) and refinery (sample No. 2) sales stockpiles of available petcoke. The results are as follows:

Sample          Vanadium (ppm)     Cobalt (ppm)     Nickel (ppm)

Sample No. 1              421              4.8             76.8
Sample No. 2              458              1.3             53.4

MGX said further analysis of concentrate post gasification ash samples is now under way, with ash amounting to 3% of oil sands petcoke by weight and less than 1% of the refinery petcoke sample.

It expects the concentrations of metals will directly correspond with the reduction in material, approximately 30 times and over 100 times, respectively. Analyses of the ash concentrate are expected shortly.

The company said a phase II study is currently being completed by Highbury and will include analyses of potential site locations, inclusion of pilot scale gasification, advanced metals extraction process design and initial plant design parameters.

Petcoke is a carbon material by-product of the oil and gas industry that forms during the oil refining process.

The province of Alberta is known to host vast stockpiles of petcoke. According to the Alberta Energy Regulator, petcoke inventories are estimated to have reached 106mln tonnes in 2016, the Canadian resource company added.

Story by ProactiveInvestors