Athabasca Minerals Inc. (AMI) opened its Coffey Lake Public Pit and initiated its first deliveries of aggregates for customers in the Ft. McMurray, Alberta, Canada, industrial region.
On March 21, the first gravel trucks were loaded, scaled and trucked out of Coffey Lake, generating sales and revenue for the company ahead of the Q2-2020 schedule previously announced in AMI’s Dec. 12, 2019, investor call. The Coffey Lake contract has a 15-year scope, “where quality aggregates will be produced to satisfy a region with consistently high demand volumes from large-scale industrial oil sands operators with ongoing road maintenance, infrastructure and sustaining capital projects,” the company stated.
Coffey Lake is located on 335 hectares (800 acres) of land, 90 km from the city of Fort McMurray and 45 km from Fort McKay in the heart of oil sands major industrial operations.
The company also announced:
- Provincial approval of a 30 hectare (72 acre) commercial lease, which serves as AMI’s True North Staging Hub for crushing and stockpiling aggregates near oil sands industrial operations and associated infrastructure projects.
- Expansion of its business interests into Ontario with a 50/50 joint venture, together with MGT Management Inc., to develop a limestone quarry on 300 acres of land approximately 90 km from the Greater Toronto Area. The prospective Buckhorn Quarry is planned to supply products for construction, civil/environmental stabilization, and agricultural market sectors.
- Corporate update pertaining to health and safety, business risk management and continuity planning in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Robert Beekhuizen, chief executive officer, stated, “It is a remarkable accomplishment in today’s regulatory environment for the AMI team to file applications, obtain approvals, clear and construct the Coffey Lake site, and commence operations one year after winning the government contract. Furthermore, to obtain in parallel commercial approval for the True North Staging Hub, that supports Coffey Lake, and in the future AMI’s Richardson Quarry Project 30 kilometers north, speaks to the corporation’s strategic foresight for value-creation. Making further strategic in-roads to access and penetrate the GTA, arguably Canada’s largest regional market for aggregates, with the Buckhorn JV is both an exciting and credible growth plan.
“Although we are equally disappointed with a decline in share price in the last five months, as markets have shifted, AMI’s intrinsic value by comparison has improved steadily over the past two years from strategic repositioning along with demonstrable accomplishments,” Beekhuizen continued. “The corporation is now poised, like never before, to realize exciting opportunities in each of its subsidiaries: AMI Aggregates, AMI Silica and AMI RockChain. We also continue to attract companies with a common view of the growth potential for unique industrial minerals applications and projects. In forming the right strategic relationships, we can leverage even more together. AMI remains fiscally responsible, and consequently has the financial runway in 2020 to press forward. We remain inspired and undeterred to achieve our strategic plan over the next year, as envisioned, even in the face of current global difficulties.”