First of all, thank you, Mr. Chairman and committee members, for the opportunity to appear today to describe a “made in Canada” solution to one area of oil sands tailings. Our technology will dramatically reduce emissions and recover bitumen, solvents, and valuable minerals currently being lost in tailings ponds.
Canada has a unique opportunity to create a new minerals export industry. Our company, Titanium Corporation, is federally incorporated and listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange. Our people hold advanced degrees and have deep experience in the oil sands and mineral sands industries.
Over the past seven years, our team of scientists has developed innovative technology solutions that remediate one of the most complex oil sands tailings streams, called froth treatment tailings. Our company holds six patents, and our technology has been prioritized and ranked in the top 20 technologies in the recent oil sands industry COSIA technology road map. The Alberta government is developing a new fiscal regime to support the production of minerals from oil sands and the recovery of bitumen from tailings.
Our shareholders have invested more than $50 million in developing these technologies, and government has invested more than $10 million, including $6.3 million of Canadian government Sustainable Development Technology Canada grant funding. Over the past three years, SDTC support has been highly valuable and instrumental in our success.
Our scientists have worked with the leading research and testing firms in Canada and the United States to find solutions, rigorously test them, and bring these technologies to commercial readiness. We have followed a highly disciplined program, involving more than 20 R and D projects with 12 expert organizations.
Before I describe the outcomes and benefits, I would like to briefly explain the oil sands tailings area we are dealing with.
We are working in the mining oil sands sector, in which large volumes of ore are truck-and-shovel mined. A hot water process separates the bitumen from the ore and creates large volumes of fluid tailings—sand, water, and bitumen. This process produces an intermediate product called bitumen froth.
After the extraction process, the bitumen froth is sent to another process, called froth treatment. In this process, a hydrocarbon solvent such as naphtha or condensate is mixed with the froth to remove the remaining bitumen and sand, creating a final bitumen product for upgrading on-site to light synthetic crude oil or for dilution and pipelining to refineries that can accept heavy crudes.
As in any large industrial process, there are small percentage losses after processing. However, due to the massive volumes of material processed by the oil sands, even small percentages amount to very significant values. The tailings from the froth treatment process contain losses of 2% to 3% of the original bitumen, lost solvent, and valuable heavy minerals. Today, all of the tailings streams discharge to tailings ponds, where the solvents and bitumen cause VOCs—volatile organic compound air emissions—and GHGs. The minerals are lost in the tailings ponds.
Our primary interest in the oil sands has been recovering minerals and creating a new minerals export industry for Canada. Along the way, we saw the opportunity to also recover hydrocarbons, which would reduce environmental impacts and create another value chain.
The benefits of implementing our technology at the oil sands mining sites, based on today's production volumes, are very significant for Canada. We would create a new minerals industry exporting 170,000 tonnes per year of zircon to Asian markets, valued at $425 million annually at today's prices. Some 28,000 barrels per day of bitumen that are being lost in tailings ponds would be recovered, at a value of $700 million per year. In total, this means more than $1 billion of additional resource recovery and more than $400 million of associated taxes and royalties to governments.
In the next decade, at projected growth rates for the mining sector, the annual value of additional resource recovery with our technology would surpass $3 billion per year. The environmental benefits are equally impressive. Recovering lost bitumen and solvents would eliminate 80% or 60 kilotonnes per year of volatile organic compound emissions from oil sands extraction and would reduce GHGs by 5.6%, or almost one megatonne per year of GHGs.
After our technology removes the hydrocarbons and minerals, the water from these tailings streams can be used for other services in the oil sands that currently use fresh river water. River water usage could be reduced by a further 25%. All of these outcomes have been validated by independent analytical and engineering firms.
Following recovery of commodities by our technology, the residual tailings will thicken much faster than at present, and the requirements for thickeners or polymers are less than for the other thickening methods.
Titanium Corporation has become expert in heavy minerals, and we see an exciting opportunity for Canada to enter international markets. Our management team has made numerous visits to Asia and to the world's largest and most rapidly growing markets in China. We have a vice-president stationed in Brisbane, Australia, the heart of the minerals production and technology industry, where we conduct our minerals testing with expert partners. We plan to first produce zircon, due to its relative higher value, and later on produce titanium. Zircon is primarily used to make ceramic tiles and other products that we use in everyday life. Zircon currently sells for $2,400 per tonne versus mined titanium, called ilmenite, which is valued at $300 per tonne.
We have completed the detailed R and D and demonstration piloting required to commercialize the three naphtha-based oil sands operations: Syncrude, Suncor, and CNRL. Over the past two years we conducted a $15 million demonstration pilot at CanmetENERGY for these firms.
Based on third party engineering cost estimates, facilities to recover minerals and lost bitumen at a large oil sands site are approximately $400 million. At these cost levels, the capital and operating costs of recovering lost tailings bitumen are one-third the cost of newly mined bitumen of similar volumes. The conclusion here is that innovative technology that recovers products from waste is highly efficient. This is the low-hanging fruit that many industries are harvesting.
We have a unique opportunity to move Canada's oil sands to the forefront, from a widely criticized and defensive position to a leader in innovation and recovery of value from waste.
Following the completion of our demonstration pilot last year, we have provided detailed technical reports to all of the participating oil sands firms, government agencies, third party independent experts, and other stakeholders. All agree that together with our industry, research, and independent partners, we have taken all measures to demonstrate the strong performance of our technology.
Despite the compelling benefits, industry has not moved forward with the first project, and we are concerned with the delays. The reasons for delays can vary, including regulations that focus on tailings volume reduction but not on recovery of any valuable products, no regulations around VOC emissions, concerns about the risks of new technologies, lack of resources in the oil sands for new projects, and a focus on operational reliability.
We fully understand these business pressures. However, there is a window of opportunity to create a minerals industry for Canada, to resolve an area of environmental concern, and to improve resource recovery.
In light of delays, we have been reaching out to stakeholders to inform you of our work, our success, and the opportunities that are now available. We have developed relationships with large international mining markets and customers for minerals, bringing them to Canada and the oil sands. They are keen to participate, but need to see willingness here in Canada by stakeholders to move forward.
Canada's energy sector is facing serious challenges, including growing new oil and gas supplies in the United States, opposition to pipeline projects to export markets, and price discounts affecting higher-cost crudes, particularly the oil sands. Canada's oil sands industry is the subject of widespread environmental concerns, threatening the industry's social licence to operate.
These issues combine to threaten Canada's future development of our energy resources and the country's economic prosperity. Projects like Titanium's address a number of these issues and must be moved ahead rapidly with support by government stakeholders.
We appeal to government, already invested in our successful R and D and demonstration piloting as a stakeholder, to lend your support to develop a collaborative venture to move the first project forward.
We believe there is a role for the ministries of natural resources, environment, and perhaps international trade to facilitate a new industry for Canada for the benefit of all Canadians.
I'd like to thank you for the opportunity to appear before the committee, and I look forward to any questions you may have.