VANCOUVER, BC – BioteQ Environmental Technologies Inc. (TSX VENTURE:BQE) is pleased to report that it has started operation of its Raglan plant. The BioteQ water treatment plant started discharging treated water on April 13th, which is approximately one month earlier than anticipated in the previous release regarding the Raglan plant in November last year.
BioteQ’s operations staff started operating the plant at the beginning of April and started to discharge treated water to the local environment one week later. The plan is to treat 800,000 cubic meters this year. The original design capacity of the plant was 550,000 cubic meters of treated water each year. The 2006 total water treated was 816,000 or approximately 50% greater than the original design capacity. The increase in design capacity of the plant is a result of process modifications made in 2005 as well an increase in operating availability in 2006 resulting from improved operations management by the operating staff. The treated water is maintained at less than 0.2 parts per million nickel concentration to ensure that the plant meets the regulated discharge criteria of less than 0.5 parts per million total nickel content. BioteQ’s plant operating costs for labour and consumables for the 2007 operating season is estimated at approximately $600,000. BioteQ charges a treatment fee of $1.12 per cubic meter of water treated as well as a capital fee of $31,800 per month.
The Raglan Mine is owned and operated by Xstrata Nickel. The Raglan water treatment plant, owned and operated by BioteQ, is a unique nickel treatment process, utilizing BioteQ’s ChemSulphide™ Process, to selectively recover nickel from low grade wastewater. The treated water produced in the BioteQ plant can be released directly into the pristine local environment at Raglan and does not produce any by-product sludge for long term storage. Patent application is in progress for the BioteQ process that was developed between 2001 and 2003 for the Raglan site, and can be applied to other nickel-bearing waste streams.
BioteQ Corporate Profile
BioteQ is establishing itself as a leader in the treatment of acid contaminated water through the use of its patented BioSulphide® Process and related sulphide technologies. Focused on the mining industry, BioteQ has partnered with leading metal producers including Phelps Dodge (Freeport), Breakwater, INCO (CVRD-INCO), Aditya Birla, Jiangxi Copper, Codelco, Molymet and Xstrata as well as utilities operator EPCOR Water Services, to finance, design, build and operate mine site water treatment plants which recover saleable metals in addition to meeting ever stricter environmental regulations.
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On behalf of the Board of Directors
Brad Marchant