With the end of the year now in sight, we can look back on a 12-month period in which we were able to deliver further growth and establish a stronger industry presence. Despite the challenges presented by the global pandemic, we are proud of the progress we have made in 2020. Thank you to all our valued partners and loyal stakeholders for supporting Acrux Resources. 

Expanding Our Global Footprint

In a bid to grow our business and explore opportunities outside of South Africa, we are expanding our global footprint and opening an office in London, to which we will be relocating at the end of 2020. 

HIGHLIGHTS OF OUR YEAR

In 2020, we continued to finesse our offering, thereby empowering each of our business units to evolve into separate entities. This is an important step towards achieving our aim of building businesses as commodity resource specialists. 

ACRUX SORTING TECHNOLOGY

In 2020, we successfully launched our sensor-based sorting technology business, Acrux Sorting Technology (AST). The company was established to solve the need for mining efficiency improvements in a capital-constrained environment. 

The solution is provided through a strategic partnership with IMS Engineering and provides zero financial risk to the capital, thereby unlocking opportunities to increase revenue and reduce costs for resource owners. This offers a double benefit: repositioning on the cost curve and improvements to ESG scorecards. Our fully-funded solution provides mineral resource owners with revolutionary, environmentally conscious sorting solutions, allowing them to convert marginal or uneconomical resources into valuable material. 

Acrux Sorting Technology has a strong pipeline of future deals, all based on our unique offering. Our sensor-based sorting technology business has also opened up a new approach to private equity financing and lets us look at potential acquisitions in a new and more holistic light. 

FINETECH MINERALS

Having successfully raised the requisite capital for this venture (a partnership with DRA Global, Kupferberg and ATA Fund 1), we can now report that DRA has built the ultra-fines recovery demonstration unit. Following its cold commissioning, this proof-of-concept demonstrator is expected to be onsite during Q1 2021 and we anticipate it being able to ‘prove the story’, initially in a chrome production setting. 

Our ultra-fines mineral recovery technology will redraw commodities cost curves and provide access to valuable minerals that were previously unavailable.

PRIVATE EQUITY

2020 proved an extremely volatile year for commodity prices and equity valuations, making M&A transactions extremely difficult to conclude.  It has thus been a quiet year (outside of gold), with very few meaningful opportunities having presented themselves. Ata Resources is, however, reviewing opportunities to integrate our Acrux Sorting Technology and FineTech offerings into our private equity model, to create further value for our partners.

PHYSICAL TRADING

Taking advantage of opportunistic trading opportunities together with our partners Wogen Resources Limited remains a core part of who we are and what we do. Our focus over the last 12 months has however been on working towards adding a longer-term flow approach whether through investment into mining opportunities or by utilising the technologies in AST or FineTech to unlock minerals to trade. 

SHARING OUR IDEAS

By leveraging our team’s knowledge and expertise, we have been able to deliver insightful thought leadership pieces that possess both topicality and enduring relevance. Click on the images below to read the articles we shared in 2020.

PUBLISHED OPINION PIECES

In the current market mayhem, mining sector investors face…

Solving the Liquidity and Credit Crisis of Quality Small and…

Innovation as antidote