Where Are We At?

With the latest news uncovered relating to KORID Energy entering an agreement with Margaret Lake Diamonds I figured it was time to do a comprehensive post about just what is happening with POW.

After a busy 2018 and early 2019 the company appears to have gone into hibernation since with little obvious progress on the Daejon vanadium project and the V-KOR battery development. Has POW been busy? Have they left it all to DST Co? Either way there has been progress behind the scenes to develop both projects.

V-KOR Vanadium Redox Flow Battery:
In January 2020 KORID Energy (50% owned by POW) entered into an agreement with Margaret Lake Diamonds for them to have exclusive global rights to the technology (excluding Korea and Australia) and KORID has also prepared a factory design for phase 1 for MLD for a factory with an annual output capacity of 50MW and 200MWh of storage.

The agreement is contingent on MLD obtaining relevant approvals including for a massive share consolidation and $5m capital raising. If executed the agreement will see an aggregate of 20m shares issued to KORID, DST Co & POW (no mention of the breakdown of how those will be split up. The deal requires no cash outlay by KORID or POW.

In January 2020 KORID Energy also signed a contract with Doosan Heavy Industries & Construction for supply of a 1MWh battery for 370m won or about A$465k.

Korean Energy Technology Evaluation and Planning (KETEP) VRFB trial 2nd year results are due this month targeting stack power of 25kW and stack power density of 70kW/L.

Daejon Vanadium Project:
Mineral resource (indicated & inferred) of 490mlbs of vanadium (V2O5) @ 0.3% grade and 18mlbs of uranium (U3O8) @ 0.011% grade. Mining plan completed in H1 2019 with excavation licence application lodged in June 2019. The review period was due to be completed by 31/1/2020.

Successful conversion to an excavation lease will grant Protean and DST Co. immediate access to commence mining and production from the Daejon tenements. The license will also require the Company to commence production within 3 years of the conversion and maintain production until 2028.

Access to the mine is via a former quarry that was purchased by DST Co (JV partner) and the East mine is accessible from the base of the former quarry which is about 200 metres horizontally from the deposit. The West mine is accessible at the base of the former quarry at about 500 metres horizontally from the deposit.

The JV has an agreement for access to KIGAM’s 1.2t/day pilot plant (about 20km away) for processing Daejon vanadium and uranium black shales. Access enables significant enhancements to development timetable and cost of developing the Daejon Vanadium project.

Protean Wave Energy Converter technology:
On 27/8/18 POW signed a deal with Pearl Clean Energy for sale of 100% of the Protean Wave Energy Converter technology which includes a 10 year 1.5% royalty fee to POW on any revenue generated.

Cash position:
As at 31/12/19 POW has cash at bank of $922k and in the first 6 months of the current financial year had a cash burn rate of $369k. POW has no current borrowings and has 311m shares on issue.