Cemvita Factory Inc. (Houston) announced that the company has partnered with Fluor Corp. (Irving, Tex.) to accelerate commercialization of innovative biomining technology across several commodities. This collaboration aims to bring together resources and expertise to support design development, optimization, and scale-up of new sustainable processes to unlock metal extraction from low-grade or recalcitrant ore bodies, and even waste.
“Cemvita Factory is committed to developing and applying breakthroughs in biotechnology to unlock metals crucial to our clean energy transition using sustainable and low-impact processes,” said Marny Reakes, VP of Biomining at Cemvita. “It was important for us to find the right EPC partner that could share the same agility and innovativeness that is core to Cemvita, and we have found that in Fluor.”
Biomining has been used successfully at scale for the last 40 years and recovers 20% of the world’s copper and 5% of the world’s gold. Cemvita brings the latest in biotech tools into action to improve recovery and extend biomining to other ore bodies and minerals to bioextract critical minerals and lower the environmental footprint of mining.
“We are committed to support the development of disruptive low carbon solutions in the mining industry, and we are excited to do so with Cemvita Factory,” said Tony Morgan, Fluor Mining & Metals President. “Through our partnership, Fluor will draw upon expertise with leaching technologies as well as our extensive engineering and project execution capabilities.”
Fluor is the latest strategic partner to join Cemvita’s network – the company has already received investment from Occidental Corp. , Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Sumitomo Corporation of Americas.