Skip to main content

Inside the Boardroom: ValOre Metals — From Bioleaching Breakthrough to PGE Revaluation

CEO.CA Apr 6, 2026 10:34

Summary

ValOre's bioleaching tests (bacteria break down metal complexes to free metals) recovered over 70% of platinum and palladium in 22 days, versus 60 before.

CEO Nick Smart argues a hydrometallurgical route (leaching on site rather than shipping concentrate to a smelter) enables low-cost processing.

The top 130 meters of weathered near-surface ore — about 30% of the 2.2-million-ounce PGM (platinum group metals) resource — grades 6.5 to 8.5 grams per ton.

A Preliminary Economic Assessment is due by end of 2026, with scale-up and column tests (heap leaching trials) set to feed its flow sheet.

Smart sees Brazil becoming a regional PGE hub as buyers diversify away from supply concentrated in South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Russia.

Nick Smart's takeaways

  • Top takeaway The CEO argues that bioleaching plus caustic pretreatment is the key unlock, enabling accelerated, higher PGE recoveries processed on site rather than through the traditional smelter route, with implications for initial capital at Pedro Branca.
  • He frames the 73%-in-22-days result as a leach-kinetics improvement over the earlier 60-day tests and points to scale-up in 7-liter stirred tank vessels followed by column tests as the confirmation path toward heap leaching.
  • He prioritizes the oxidized, near-surface weathered ore — the top ~130 meters, about 30% of the resource at 6.5-8.5 g/t — for leaching, while treating the deeper sulfide fresh ore, which suits flotation, as a lesser near-term focus.
  • He says innovative processing is a growing industry focus and that he is personally excited about bioleaching and bioprocessing as a new frontier able to access ore bodies traditional routes cannot.
  • He argues Brazil is the logical base for ValOre: a potential regional PGE hub doing mining and processing in-jurisdiction, close to a major auto-manufacturing end market, with the end-of-2026 PEA as the key 2026 milestone.

Rachel Tidball's takeaways

  • Top takeaway As interviewer, she presses on whether proven bioleaching lets ValOre bypass a traditional smelter and what that means for initial capital, plant footprint and economics at Pedro Branca.
  • She argues safe, supportive jurisdictions matter more than ever and probes what ValOre's Brazil build-out and the end-of-2026 PEA mean for 2026.