An exploration startup aiming to mine critical minerals and rare earth metals from black shale in northern Alberta hopes to begin trading on the TSX Venture Exchange in the coming weeks. Toronto-based Critical Minerals Americas Inc. (CMAI) said it has identified 10 critical minerals, including copper , lithium, uranium and scandium, plus 15 rare earths in low-grade, bulk tonnage deposits about 120 kilometres north of Fort McMurray, Alta., not far from Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. ’s Horizons oilsands mine. CMAI said it wants to use microorganisms to extract the metals, a technique known as bioleaching, which it has already been consulting on with scientists in both Finland and Alberta. The company earlier this year also reached a service agreement with Natural Resources Canada to conduct “a comprehensive review” of the historical metallurgical and bioleaching reports on its deposits. “The minerals are relatively low grade and what makes this work is scale,” Denis Clement, CMAI’s chief executive, said. “We’re going to be very aggressive in developing the processing technology for this.” CMAI still needs to raise money for its project. The company, in a Mar. 30 press release, said it completed a reverse takeover of Good2Go4 Corp., a TSX-V capital pool corporation. It also said Research Capital Corp. and Hampton Securities Ltd. will broker a targeted $8-million private placement, consisting of hard dollar units priced at $1.20 per share, plus a 36-month half warrant exercisable at $1.55 per share. In addition, it said it would offer flow-through shares at $1.40 per share, plus a 36-month half warrant exercisable at $1.55 per share. CMAI’s Black Shales Project, which it refers to as SBH, has been studied before. A previous company, DNI Metals Inc., spent millions of dollars on drilling and research and published a bullish preliminary economic assessment in 2014, but could not ultimately attract investor interest. Instead, DNI shifted its focus to a graphite project in Madagascar, but it failed around 2021 after one of its executives was arrested and convicted of fraud in connection with permits for its project in that country. Clement, who sat on DNI’s board of directors until 2016, reacquired the SBH project in 2022 and has been amassing a high-profile team, including Sonya Savage, Alberta’s minister of energy from 2019 to 2022 and now senior counsel at Borden Ladner Gervais LLP, who joined the board in January. Ken Bradley, former vice-chair of the Alberta Oil Sands Technology and Research Authority, the provincial Crown corporation that helped develop the processes used to unlock oil at an economic price, joined as a strategic adviser in December. He said the project appealed to him because it could piggyback on the industrial infrastructure — roads, bridges and pipelines — created for the oilsands and the “intellectual infrastructure” — the scientists and engineers — that has amassed in Alberta over the past few decades. “Within Alberta, you have this incredible capability and knowledge in research and development and commercialization and intellectual property development,” he said. “It can be replicated expeditiously to apply that kind of determined effort to the SBH project.” In presentations to investors, CMAI has said DNI mothballed the project as a result of China’s “monopolistic control over supply, pricing and processing” of the critical minerals supply chain. Aiming to tap into the newfound appetite in Canada, as well as in the United States, for independent supply chains, Clement has said that processing the minerals has to be part of the plan. Helium company wants Ottawa's help to build country's first liquefaction facilityOntario announces $10 million for junior exploration companies “We’re going to start developing advanced bioleaching and processing of critical minerals,” he said. • Email: gfriedman@postmedia.com