ITRONICS REPORTS 2020 SILVER SALES UP 224 PERCENT,
TOTAL SALES DOWN 3
PERCENT
RENO, NV -- February 17, 2021 -- InvestorsHub
NewsWire -- Itronics Inc. (OTC:ITRO) an emerging "Cleantech Materials"
growth Company that manufactures GOLD'n GRO Multi-Nutrient
Fertilizers and produces silver, gold, zinc, critical minerals, and
battery minerals recovered from industrial and mining waste, today
reported its full year 2020 sales, and updated its operations and
growth projects.
Total Revenues for the 12 months ended December
31, 2020 were $1,876,022 compared to $1,943,609 in the same period
in 2019, for a 3 percent decrease. Full year GOLD'n GRO
fertilizer sales were $1,681,857 compared to $1,838,619 in the
prior year for a 9 percent decrease due to a sharp Covid-19 driven
decline in the fourth quarter. Full year silver sales were
$141,493 compared to $43,700 in the prior year for a 224 percent
increase.
The 2021 outlook for GOLD'n GRO fertilizer
sales is for a significant increase over 2020 due to a greatly
reduced impact from Covid-19 and driven by sharp improvements in
demand for crops grown in our primary California markets. The
2021 outlook for silver sales is for continued improvement due to a
combination of on-going recovery optimization and to sharply higher
silver and gold prices compared to
2020.
During the year, the Company optimized a GOLD'n
GRO magnesium fertilizer and prepared it for field testing and
registration in California. The Company also created and
successfully field tested a
GOLD'n GRO copper fertilizer for sale in California
to strawberry growers. Sales development of these fertilizers
was delayed to 2021 due to restrictions imposed by the state of
California due to Covid-19.
During the year, the Company updated its
Corporate Profile, which is available on the Itronics
website. The Company also completed and announced its growth
forecast which centers upon its 10year business plan designed to
integrate its Zero Waste Energy Saving Technologies and to grow
annual sales from $2 million in 2019, to $140 million in
2025.
During the third quarter the Company continued
its fast-track development of its revolutionary Rock Kleen
Technology. A second series of tests designed to determine
maximum metal recovery of metals contained in silver/gold mine
tailings was completed with very positive results. A third
set of tests were completed to determine if residual silver and
gold recovery using cyanide would be improved if the rocks were
first leached using the Rock Kleen, then re-leached using
cyanide. Unoptimized test results indicate that
recoveries could be improved to the point that up to 90 percent of
the residual silver and gold could be recovered. The
cumulative results of all the Rock Kleen testing performed to date
indicate that the Rock Kleen technology has a high probability to
be technically and economically successful for processing
silver/gold mine tailings.
In early October the Company announced that it is
developing two technologies that recover manganese, one of the four
most important battery metals, and that as these developments
continue, the Company could become one of the first domestic
producers of manganese since the 1970's. In addition, the
Rock Kleen technology has demonstrated the ability to recover the
"Critical Minerals", magnesium, manganese, and potassium from mine
tailings, and the battery metals manganese, nickel, silver, and
zinc.
Late in the fourth quarter the Company began to
prepare the records needed to re-establish its annual audits
beginning in 2021. Completing this work is a high priority
project for 2021 and will be started as soon as operating funds
permit.
- Full Year Sales
Results
Unaudited Revenues for the fourth quarter, and
12 months ended December 31, 2020 together with comparative figures
for 2019 are presented below:
Operations and Expansion
Updates
GOLD'n GRO
Multi-Nutrient Fertilizers: During the
second quarter the Company began testing a GOLD'n GRO copper
micronutrient formulation for use on strawberries. This
testing is complete and produced very positive results. In
August, the Company received approval to sell the fertilizer
commercially in California under a provisional
label. The Company is assembling the information
needed to formally register the fertilizer in Nevada and
California. Due to Covid-19 restrictions, sales of this new
fertilizer were delayed until the first quarter
2021.
The GOLD'n GRO sales team was planning to start
field testing a GOLD'n GRO magnesium fertilizer in the fourth
quarter, but that was delayed until the first quarter 2021.
In recent years, widespread magnesium deficiencies have emerged in
the California vegetable and berry growing areas so, at our
distributor's request, we have upgraded the fertilizer to a fully
chelated magnesium fertilizer and have generated all the
information needed for re-registration. This magnesium
fertilizer is already registered in
Nevada.
Earlier in 2020, the Company was informed by
its Distributor that in certain areas in California, crop calcium
deficiencies are emerging. Several years ago, Itronics
developed a chelated calciummagnesium fertilizer. In early
2020 we upgraded this fertilizer to a fully chelated
calcium-magnesium fertilizer. We believe that this fertilizer
will improve calcium and magnesium uptake by the crops.
Current plans are to start field testing this fertilizer in the
first quarter 2021. This fertilizer is not yet registered in
California, but it is registered for sale in
Nevada.
Calcium fertilizers are already widely used in
California, but the use is primarily for soil conditioning and pH
adjustment. Itronics believes that its GOLD'n GRO "Advanced
Nutrient Transfer Technology" will improve calcium uptake by the
crops. Several field tests performed with other GOLD'n GRO
fertilizers have already demonstrated that calcium and magnesium
uptake is improved when these fertilizers are
used.
Magnesium and Calcium are "middle nutrients" as
is sulfur. Middle nutrients are used in much larger
quantities than the micronutrient fertilizers. Because of
this, sales of the GOLD'n GRO magnesium and calcium fertilizers
could materially increase total GOLD'n GRO sales in coming years as
the calcium and magnesium fertilizers are introduced into the
markets to help reduce the deficiencies that are
emerging.
Silver
Bullion and Other Metal Production: The pilot scale
computer circuit board refining operation is operating
reliably. Metal recovery optimization is underway and is
improving bullion silver and gold content while at the same time
improving furnace efficiency and reducing the unit cost of metals
being recovered.
The Company plans to have this division include
its hydrometallurgy and its electro-chemistry operations. The
hydrometallurgy section is operating at a pilot scale and is
presently recovering iron (FeLix Process) and sulfur (SuLix
Process) from its internally produced silver concentrates.
The iron and sulfur are being used as ingredients in the GOLD'n GRO
fertilizers which reduces the cost of raw materials purchased from
outside suppliers.
The Company is evaluating the feasibility of
expanding these operations in the coming year to include pilot
scale recovery of zinc from certain types of flue dusts (ZnLix
Process). This will continue zinc metal recovery R & D
that was started several years ago and has two objectives.
One objective is to produce zinc raw material for use in
manufacturing GOLD'n GRO fertilizers which would reduce the amount
of zinc purchased from outside suppliers and reduce the cost of
goods for the GOLD'n GRO fertilizers. A second important
objective of this work would be to initiate pilot scale use of
electro-chemistry to recover zinc metal. If commercial scale
zinc metal production can be achieved, then it would be possible to
begin continuous processing of certain zinc flue dusts to produce
pure zinc metal. This is expected to expand and diversify the
Company's metal sales by adding another stable revenue stream to
reduce the seasonality of the Company's total
sales.
The experimental work to produce zinc metal
using electro-winning technology was started in early January 2021
using a laboratory scale electrowinning cell developed by the
Company. Currently small amounts of zinc metal are being
produced while the operating parameters are being developed.
The Company plans to expand zinc output in stages starting at
laboratory scale and expanding to pilot scale at the Company's
35,000 square foot Reno, Nevada manufacturing and R & D
facility. The Company already owns most of the equipment
needed to do this. The equipment is on site and can be put
into operation with only minor
modifications.
The zinc bearing liquid (Pregnant Leach
Solution, also called PLS) fed to the electrowinning cell is
produced by recovering zinc from flue dust produced by a
brass/bronze manufacturer. The residuals from the leaching process
contain measurable amounts of silver and gold which will be used as
feed materials for the Company's circuit board assembly (E-Scrap)
refining process. This will expand the supply of silver concentrate
for refining printed circuit boards. The contained metals
will be incorporated into the silver bullion for sale making this
another "Zero Waste Energy Saving" operation for the
Company.
Processing zinc bearing flue dust is one of the
technologies in the Company's portfolio of "Zero Waste Energy
Saving" technologies that are being prepared for expansion to
commercial scale. Activating this technology development
starts the process of establishing the ability to produce pure
metals using electrochemistry and opens the door to processing
alkaline battery paste which contains zinc, manganese, and
potassium. Some of the new EV battery technologies use
manganese, one of the four most important battery metals, so this
technology development may enable the company to process Electric
Vehicle (EV) battery pastes in the future. In addition, the
Company's Rock Kleen technology has shown the ability to recover
the battery metals nickel, manganese, and zinc from silver/gold
mine leach tailings, all of which will need to be separated and
recovered using electrochemistry.
Beginning zinc recovery R & D opens the
door to following this work with a continuation of R & D
started several years ago to recover zinc, manganese, and potassium
from paste extracted from discarded alkaline batteries. Our
laboratory scale research has already shown that we can extract
zinc, manganese, and potassium for use in GOLD'n GRO
fertilizers. We believe that electro-chemistry may be useable
to recover manganese chemicals that could be sold into outside
markets, such as for battery materials. The ability to
produce manganese chemicals is critical because the Company
believes that the amount of manganese contained in battery pastes
greatly exceeds the amount of manganese required for the fertilizer
markets.
In 2020 the company announced that it plans to resume
experimental recovery of pure copper and possibly tin from the
silver bullion which will further increase the silver and gold
content of the bullion being shipped for sale to its finish
refiner. The zinc metal recovery research is further along
and so that work was started first. Manganese recovery
research is expected to follow. The copper-tin recovery
research would start after that. The plan is to start the
research at the Reno manufacturing facility and then to expand the
electrochemistry recovery operations to the Itronics Cleantech
Materials Campus that is being planned for development at its
48-acre Wabuska site north of Yerington,
Nevada.
Rock Kleen
Technology and Business Plan Development: During the
first quarter the Company announced completion of a detailed 3-year
growth plan for Reno manufacturing operations. A 10 year
growth plan for consolidated operations that include expansion to
the new "Itronics Cleantech Materials Campus" was completed in the
second quarter. This plan was updated in the third quarter to
factor in the 2020 impacts of Covid-19 on the growth plan.
The expected impacts of expanded materials recoveries using the
Rock Kleen technology were also incorporated into the
plan. Itronics is anticipating rapid growth over the
next several years, to be driven by GOLD'n GRO fertilizer sales and
to be supported by development of the new Rock Kleen technology
which was selected from the Company's portfolio of "Zero Waste
Technologies" for commercial development as a major new line of
business.
In early August, Whitney & Whitney, Inc.,
the Company's technical services subsidiary signed a second
research contract to further evaluate the potential for silver
tailings processing for a silver mining company. The project used
the Company's newly developed Rock Kleen Technology to accomplish
the processing. The test work was completed in November and
produced positive silver, manganese, and other metal recovery
results.
Manganese has been designated by the Federal
Government as a "Critical Mineral". Manganese is one of
the four most important industrial metals and is widely used by the
steel industry worldwide. It is a major component of
non-rechargeable alkaline batteries, one of the largest battery
categories sold in the world. The use of manganese in EV
batteries is increasing as EV battery technology is shifting to use
of more nickel and manganese in battery formulations.
According to a recent United Nations report, manganese is one of
the four most important battery
materials.
According to the U.S. Department of Interior,
there is no mine production of manganese in the United
States. Itronics is using its revolutionary Rock Kleen
Technology to test metal recoverability from mine tailings obtained
from a former silver mine in western Nevada that has a high
manganese content. The Rock Kleen process is recovering
silver, manganese, lead, zinc, and nickel. The Company has
calculated, based on laboratory test results, that if a Rock Kleen
tailings process is put into commercial production, the tailings
processing operation would become the largest primary manganese
producer in the United States.
A long-term objective for Itronics is to become
a leading producer of high purity metals, including the U.S.
critical metals manganese and tin, using the Company's breakthrough
hydrometallurgy, pyrometallurgy, and electrochemical technologies.
Additionally, Itronics is also strategically positioned with its
portfolio of "Zero Waste Energy Saving Technologies" to help solve
the recently declared emergency need for domestic production of
Critical Minerals from materials located at mine
sites.
In August, Itronics announced that the Rock
Kleen silver/gold mine tailings processing research is showing that
the revolutionary Rock Kleen technology not only neutralizes
cyanide and recovers nitrogen, and a broad group of base and
ferrous metals, but it also recovers sulfur and potassium that is
naturally contained in many Nevada silver/gold deposits.
Because of this, as development of Rock Kleen processing operations
progresses, the Rock Kleen operations have the potential to provide
a whole new source of virgin raw materials, not only to supply the
metal industries, but also certain nutrient raw materials for the
fertilizer industry and industrial mineral materials for many
industries including the Construction and Ceramics industries and
industries that use mineral fillers. Existing mines and
tailings from previously operating mines will be the source of
these new virgin raw materials, so it will not be necessary to
build as many new mines to gain access to these
materials.
Rock Kleen commercialization is expected to
permanently supply a portion of the recovered nutrient metals,
zinc, iron, manganese, and copper, and the nitrogen, potassium, and
sulfur for use as raw materials for the manufacture of the GOLD'n
GRO Multi-nutrient fertilizers. Rock Kleen commercialization
will also supply silver concentrates for use in printed circuit
board refining on a permanent basis. This will enable expanded
printed circuit board refining as new Rock Kleen operations are
added.
Auric
Fulstone Polymetallic Gold Project: Early in the
first half the Company was successful in getting two mining
companies to review the project for possible joint venture
development, but those activities were shelved due to COVID-19
risks. Subsequently, gold and silver prices have risen
dramatically creating expanded revenues for all gold and silver
production companies. Because of this, and after the COVID-19
risks are deemed to be acceptable, the Company is expecting that
there will be considerable interest in the Auric Fulstone
Polymetallic Gold project as a potential joint venture
development.
If you would like to be added to our e-mail
list for all updates on our emerging clean technologies, please
call us at 775-689-7696, e-mail "investor@itronics.com, or leave a
message in our message box on our website at www.itronics.com so
that we can get a profile report to you. The Company thanks
all its supporters as it expands its technologies to make the world
cleaner and greener.
About
Itronics
Headquartered in Reno, Nevada, Itronics Inc. is a
"Zero Waste Energy Saving Technology" Company which produces GOLD'n
GRO specialty liquid fertilizers, silver bullion, and
silver-bearing glass. The Company is an emerging "critical
mineral", and "battery materials" producer. The Company's
goal is to achieve profitable cleantech materials technology driven
organic growth in specialty GOLD'n GRO fertilizers, silver, gold,
zinc, critical minerals, and battery minerals. The Company's
technologies maximize the recovery and uses of metals and minerals
and by doing this maximize
sustainability.
The Company's growth forecast centers upon
its 10-year business plan designed to integrate its Zero Waste
Energy Saving Technologies and to grow annual sales from $2 million
in 2019, to $100 million in
2025.
The Company's environmentally friendly award
winning GOLD'n GRO liquid fertilizers, which are extensively used
in agriculture, can be used for lawns and houseplants, and
are available at the Company's "estore" on Amazon.Com
at http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=bl_sr_lawn-garden?ie+UTF8&fieldbrandtextbin=GOLD%27n+GRO&node+2972638011. Due to expanded
retail customer interest, GOLD'n GRO fertilizer may now be
purchased in Reno, Nevada at "Buy Nevada First Gift Shop", 4001 S.
Virginia St.
Follow Itronics on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/itronicsinc
Follow Itronics on Twitter:https://twitter.com/itronicsinc
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VISIT OUR WEB SITE: http://www.itronics.com
("Safe Harbor" Statement under the Private
Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995: This press release
contains or may contain forward-looking statements such as
statements regarding the Company's growth and profitability, growth
strategy, liquidity and access to public markets, operating expense
reduction, and trends in the industry in which the Company
operates. The forward-looking statements contained in this
press release are also subject to other risks and uncertainties,
including those more fully described in the Company's filings with
the Securities and Exchange Commission. The Company assumes
no obligation to update these forward-looking statements to reflect
actual results, changes in risks, uncertainties or assumptions
underlying or affecting such statements, or for prospective events
that may have a retroactive
effect.)
Contact: Paul
Knopick
888-795-6336
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