Doubleview Gold Corp (TSX-V:DBG, OTCQB:DBLVF) aims to become a key supplier of scandium from its polymetallic Hat project located in northern British Columbia’s Golden Triangle.
The company’s CEO Farshad Shirvani sat down with Proactive’s Steve Darling to discuss the company’s aim to become a domestic supplier of the critical metal, production of which is currently dominated by Russia and China.
Proactive: To start, let’s talk scandium 101. What is scandium?
Shirvani: Scandium has been used in the industry to the extent that they could find it – close to zero. It’s been used in golf clubs in combination with aluminum to give it strength, durability and weldability – all good criteria that aluminum doesn’t have and that scandium alone cannot do.
This material is very rare on earth as it only happens in laterite, which is a kind of clay material, or in a deposit like ours, inside the structure of a porphyry.
As you said, scandium is used in golf clubs in the US for strengthening. What are some other uses, now and in the future?
In Russia, they use it in airplanes, jet fighters, because it gives them the ability to make the airplane lighter, so it can go higher and it can fly longer distances. So that’s the biggest use of this material.
They haven’t used it in North America because there is no deposit up to now of that scale – they can use it only on small scales. The fact is doesn’t exist is one of the deterrents to using that in the industry.
Tell me about the scandium part of the Hat project.
If you look at all the information that we have published so far, we have about 25 grams per ton of this material everywhere on the deposit. We get 98% recovery, which is very significant in this kind of material, and we get it there cheaply.
What is the plan going forward with this type of material?
There’s been some sound from the majors – we’re talking to them but they’re waiting for our resource estimate.
In the meantime, my plan is to go to Lockheed Martin (NYSE:LMT), Boeing and the military in the United States to showcase it to them and say that we can provide enough scandium for them for use in every airplane they have in the future.
Let’s get an update on that resource estimate for the Hat project. Is that expected this year?
It’s expected to be here before the Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada (PDAC) event in March.