I recently had the opportunity to sit down with Vilhjamur Vilhjalmsson (Ceo of St. George eco mining). Villi has been an enigma since he took over the role as CEO in August, as he chose to take a different approach than Frank and limit his interactions with shareholders. However, he was very welcoming and I must say, I rather enjoyed my time talking with him and his associates and look forward to catching up with him again at PDAC. He was kind enough to follow up with a response to a Q&A email I sent him, which I will share with you now.
Q- Many people were not sure what to think when you took control of the company as you were somewhat of a mystery man, operating behind the scenes. Can you tell us a bit about your experience and what you bring to the table for the company?
A- My background is in civil construction and mining. This will include everything from building an underground gold processing plant CIP and to doing an exploration work in Greenland, whereas we took a project from greenfield into JORC (NI43-101) Resource within 18 months. With North Atlantic Mining Associates Ltd (Mining service)I have also operated in Iceland, Africa, Norway and the UK. My involvement in SX came through the sale of my tenements in Iceland which I have worked on for many years. I’m the hands-on type like to get my hands dirty in the field and always concentrate on getting projects into production or sell them off to others who can.
Q-I have had the opportunity to converse with Enrico through email a few times and his insight to the value of the extraction technologies has been a large reason as to why i am personally invested in sx… Can you elaborate on the industry demand for this sort of technology and what benefit Enrico’s involvement has had on the ongoing testing you are doing?
A- SX is Eco mining and Eco mining is not necessary just about being with greener methods or lowering the carbon footprint. It is also about utilising all the elements from the mine and by doing that you actually lower the footprint and become greener. What I love about Enrico and his vision is his ability to think outside of the conventional box and come up with methods that challenge the way things have been done and see that it actually works. The industry will always be looking for new ways to reduce cost and also be more eco friendly and by us delivering these solutions to them tried and tested are extremely valuable.
Q- Can you also offer an in depth view of how your tech differs from what we are currently seeing today and where are you at with regards to some of the initiatives you have going?
A- We have filed for patents bot in the lithium space and the blockchain technology. The patents on its own will speak from them selves and I cannot go into technical details at this stage.
Q- Are you currently working on acquiring more contracts like the ones you have with ICM and HIPPO, or have you had other companies inquiring about your tech capabilities?
A- Yes we are engaged in multiple discussions and the company is not a one horse pony.
Q- Can you offer an update on the HIPPO contract and when you expect to start moving forward with that project ?
A- We are in regular discussion with them and we expect a sample from their project in the near term.
Q- We seen some activity in Quebec this fall on twitter, Can you explain what exactly you guys were working on at the time?
A- We were preparing for this season campaign that we expect to announce shortly.
Q- So we have talked a bit about the mining side of the company and now i would like to inquire about the Borealis ETF… What is the big picture for Borealis? There really hasn’t been much information on the development of the project and i was hoping you might offer some insight.
A- We are developing a trading platform for commodities tokens, we are well advanced as we have stated in our press releases. However, this is a kind of project that is really difficult to explain until we can actually launch the platform and show it to people. The acquisition of V3net was a very good milestone and one can just see how that can all collaborate. And the beauty of it all is the ZeU connection and the brilliant team we have set together.
Q- It would seem that Frank & company have been busy working on ZeU and there seems to be some optimism surrounding a listing date early this year. Can you explain the listing process and offer some insight as to what ultimately delayed the process and what price point will ZeU be IPO’d at?
A- We all have to understand, that although we were fully ready in last August to list ZeU the Tiande situation meant that we had to completely rework ZeU. My view is that we from SX point of view we stand with much stronger business model and by far more robust company. As we have stated recently, we expect to be able to give a listing date for ZeU in Q1. Once we have submited all the document to the exchange and only upon approval we can give definitive date of listing. As of today we are on track.
Q- As you well know, a lot of people were caught off guard by the collapse of the Tiande deal. It has been 4 months now and people are wondering what is happening with regards to pursuing legal action against Tiande… are you at liberty to discuss this ?
A-I have always been on the opinion that these things will not been discussed in public.
Q-What was the thinking behind acquiring the 15% of the Hugavatn dam? and how does it fit into the company moving forward?
A- This actually came into my hands few years back and through Iceland Resources acquired this option to participate upon certain milestones achieved. When this emerged, the SX board decided that this was a logical approach to exercise and support. The dam will be Eco friendly and Iceland Resources ehf a 100% subsidiary of SX will play a larger role in exploiting resources in Iceland in any way shape or form.
Q- With a new year and some optimism can you please offer us some indication of the direction of the company and what you hope to accomplish as the year progresses?
A- I think my view of the company has become quite clear over the last 6 months since I took on the CEO role. The team has done a brilliant job and we have kept to all our promises and delivered everything on time. we are still reshaping the company and I think we will see the company evolve and be streamlined. My hopes for this year is to see all our projects and subsidiaries gain momentum, list Zeu and launch the Borealis platform. So the goal for this year is to under promise and over deliver as we have done for the past 6 months.
In my opinion based on my interactions with management, They have been working very hard behind the scenes and are on track to begin generating revenue. Since the email was written there have been many developments and many more to come in the coming months. The team of professionals that they have surrounded themselves with speaks volumes about the direction they are headed and with a bit of patience, Villi and company will bring all aspects of the company together and create true share holder value.
