ROBERT Friedland has outlined what he believes is the “future of...

ROBERT Friedland has outlined what he believes is the “future of exploration” – and an Australian junior is set to be a major benefactor.

Aside from Toronto-listed Ivanhoe Mines, the Singapore-based mining entrepreneur also controls private vehicle High Powered Exploration (HPX).

HPX has developed the Typhoon induced polarisation survey to find deposits undercover. The technology was first deployed in Mongolia’s Gobi Desert three years ago.

“Technology drives everything,” Friedland told IMARC in Melbourne.

“What we’re doing is compressing electrical energy with super capacitors to create extremely powerful electromagnetic fields and with that electromagnetic field we do useful work. “We believe this is the future of exploration.”

Friedland said the technology could help find orebodies that were previously hidden. The Typhoon works by shooting electrical energy into the earth.

“Every time the Typhoon machine fires, it puts more energy than a nuclear power plant output into the earth – up to 50 times a second – bam, bam, bam!” Friedland said.

“And if you’ve got something that’s electrically conductive down there – copper, gold, other sulphides – it will absorb that electrical energy and store it like a battery for a longer period of time than the surrounding area that’s not mineralised.”

Friedland explained that the resolution of the image was directly related to how much power was put into the earth.

“This is a lot like swimming underwater without goggles and you see something and you don’t know if it’s your buddy in a wetsuit or whether it’s a big shark coming to eat you,” he said.

“As soon as you put on goggles you can actually see more clearly because we’ve put more energy into the earth.”


Australia’s Apollo Minerals is one company benefiting from the Typhoon at its Commonwealth Hill project in the Gawler Craton of South Australia. Under a deal inked in February, HPX can earn an 80% stake in Apollo’s Titan project by spending $A3.4 million over two phases to form the Commonwealth Hill joint venture. HPX made also made a $A1 million investment in Apollo, giving the company an initial 10.1% stake and has an option to boost it to 19.9%. HPX used the Typhoon survey at Titan in the second quarter to generate drill targets. The maiden drilling program is complete with the first results due shortly, but Apollo said last week the program had confirmed the potential for the area to host an iron oxide-copper-gold deposit. Friedland said HPX was looking for more projects.

“If you’ve got a really great piece of ground, come and talk to us,” he said.

“We might be interested. We’re one of the few groups that are still exploring.”

Friedland also invested in Australian company Clean Teq, which has a technology that can separate metals from water. He topped up his 19.9% stake last week as part of a capital raising.

“Clean Teq is an amazing little company out of Melbourne,” he said.

“I had the privilege of becoming an investor.” And he is also working on a crushing method called I-Pulse, which uses also electromagnetic technology.

“We’re in detailed discussions with major engineering firms on the commercialisation of this technology,” Friedland said.

“We’re using electromagnetic fields – essentially lightning bolts.” He said the technology was highly energy efficient.


“What we’re doing is liberating metal from rock with a 99% reduction in contained energy – with almost no energy at all,” he said.

“At any given time in Australia, 16% - one, six percent – of the total amount of electricity consumed on this continent is crushing and grinding rock at any given moment.

“Basically we were born 30 years too early and these amazing technologies are coming to our industry.”

Friedland was bullish on the future of hydrogen fuel cell cars and the impact on metals demand.

“This is a very interesting technology,” he said.

“Where the automotive industry goes, the mining industry follows, which is important because the automotive industry is really big.

“The era of hydrogen fuel cell cars is opening soon in a theatre near you which has huge implications for the raw materials industry.”