Canadian Premium Sand Inc. (“CPS” or the “Company”) (TSXV: CPS) is pleased to announce the results of its bulk sand testing project. A comprehensive, large scale testing procedure was conducted by Hazen Research Inc., a leading laboratory providing performance and design criteria to the mineral, energy, environmental and chemical industries. This final sand testing exercise simulated the industrial scale processes required to produce solar glass specification sand as the primary feedstock for the Company’s patterned solar glass manufacturing facility being developed in Selkirk, Manitoba, Canada.
Sand Testing Highlights
- Verifies the requirement for simple mechanical treatment processes including only basic attrition scrubbing and gravity and magnetic separation.
- Confirms a low-cost and environmentally responsible process methodology can be employed to produce solar glass grade silica sand without the use of iron reducing chemicals.
- Finalizes the pre-construction engineering and design of the Company’s sand processing facility.
“With these sand testing results in hand, we have completed an important milestone in the development of our integrated solar glass manufacturing project. We have now confirmed the industrial scale processes required to refine our silica sand to solar glass grade enabling us to finalize details of our sand processing design and equipment selection,” stated Company President & CEO, Glenn Leroux.
Operational Update
CPS has now executed preliminary commercial agreements with a number of prospective customers, with aggregate indications for solar glass demand well in excess of 1,000 tonnes per day. CPS also continues to progress similar agreements with other potential customers for additional demand indications.
The Company is currently in the process of allocating its production capacity to these prospective customers by converting the preliminary commercial agreements into formal offtake agreements with binding commercial terms.
In response to the strong expressions of interest from prospective customers, CPS is proceeding with the pre-construction design of a solar glass manufacturing facility that is larger than the 550 tonnes per day facility outlined in the Company’s FEED study. With the expanded design nearing completion, the Company is focusing its attention on the associated project capital costs, with the objective of arriving at an overall budget that balances capital efficiency, equity return and project execution risk through an appropriate contracting structure with its EPC consortium.
“We are seeing strong customer demand for domestic supply of patterned solar glass in North America. The U.S. government’s recent passing of the Inflation Reduction Act has accelerated industry momentum towards building a more robust North American solar energy supply chain. Many of the Company’s prospective customers have recently announced significant expansion plans as a result.
“Additionally, the Company is engaged in commercial conversations with several international solar panel manufacturers that are planning to establish U.S. manufacturing operations. We remain on track to bring our solar glass manufacturing project to shovel-ready status by the end of Q1 2023,” continued Glenn Leroux.