Comstock Releases Shareholder Letter
VIRGINIA CITY, Nev., April 13, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Comstock Inc. (NYSE: LODE) (“Comstock” and the “Company”) today announced that its executive chairman and chief executive officer issued the following shareholder letter.
Dear Shareholders:
On behalf of our Board of Directors, our employees, and partners, we thank each of you for your support as we integrated our acquisitions, built new value with our technologies, and completed our transformation into an innovator of technologies that enable systemic decarbonization. We’re excited by our progress as we realized extraordinary technological breakthroughs in our cellulosic fuels and artificial intelligence businesses, advanced our metals and mining businesses, and achieved key objectives for monetizing our real estate assets.
Our progress has been remarkable and could easily justify more than a tenfold increase in our market value and stock price based on the results of comparable companies. Unlocking that value will ultimately come down to successfully commercializing and using our technologies to generate revenue and earnings. We’re committed to that end, and we’re emboldened by our current prospects. We’ve much to share, however, for now, I want to underscore the key objectives that we met in the past year and the specific steps that we’re taking to generate revenue moving forward.
Comstock Fuels – Most renewable fuels draw from the same feedstock pool, but the total supply can only meet a small fraction of the demand. Our technologies unblock that constraint by converting abundant but underutilized lignocellulosic biomass into biointermediates for refining into renewable fuels. Our team recently demonstrated commercial readiness with unprecedented yields approaching 100 gallons of fuel per dry ton of feedstock on a gasoline gallon equivalent basis. Execution of one or more license agreements with operationally experienced, technologically sophisticated, and well capitalized customers is a top 2023 objective. Each license could create more than 20 years of recurring royalty revenue with material upfront engineering fees.
Comstock Metals – The world is focused on the production of energy generation and storage technologies to reduce reliance on fossil fuels, including lithium-ion batteries (“LIBs”), photovoltaics, and fuel cells. Each of those technologies relies on scarce critical metals, increasing global demand for primary metal mining and recycling. During 2022, we deployed a pilot system to validate technologies for use in efficiently crushing, conditioning, extracting, and recycling high purity metal concentrates from LIBs and other electronic devices. We also expanded our leadership team in metals recycling, permitted a universal waste storage facility on our existing mining property, opportunistically modified our operating plans to use another existing mining property, and sold our previously planned LIB facility in the Tahoe Reno Industrial Center for net cash proceeds of over $14 million. Securing revenue generating supply commitments in our expanded metals recycling business is a key objective for 2023.
Comstock Mining – We own or control twelve square miles of patented mining claims, unpatented mining claims, and surface parcels, covering six and a half miles of continuous mineral strike length. We enhanced the value of a small portion of our properties in the past year with two SK-1300 technical reports confirming Measured and Indicated resources of 605,000 ounces of gold and 5,880,000 ounces of silver, plus Inferred resources of 297,000 ounces of gold and 2,572,000 ounces of silver. We believe that our mining properties collectively contain billions of dollars of recoverable metals. Our plan to demonstrate that value combines our amassed historical and current data repository with hyperspectral orbital imaging and generative artificial intelligence (“AI”) solutions to provide prospecting analytics and enable mineral discovery for a fraction of the cost of conventional exploration. Our 2023 efforts should enhance our resources and advance us toward full economic feasibility.
Artificial Intelligence – Our 48% owned subsidiary, Quantum Generative Materials LLC (“GenMat”), developed and launched a new generative AI to simulate critical properties of known materials during calibration testing late last year. Remarkably, GenMat also used its AI to simulate new material characteristics. It is impossible to overstate the significance of those achievements on GenMat’s ability to generate revenue. GenMat’s generative AI models can be employed today for commercial use on GenMat’s existing high-performance computing platform, well before quantum computers become mainstream. In 2023, GenMat will, among other things, elevate new material simulation to commercial readiness by synthesizing and directly testing new AI simulated materials in high value applications. Our investment in GenMat is also a crucial component of our ongoing innovation strategy.
UPLODE 2023 – This is our platform for growth, and we’re focused on using it to break new ground and generate revenue and throughput. We believe the value creation and impact on our stakeholders will be enormous. We’re accordingly expanding our investor communications this year, including with our inaugural UPLODE Investor Day scheduled for June 28, 2023, and ongoing engagement thereafter. We look forward to our annual meeting on May 25, 2023, and, until then, we thank you for your continued interest, patience, and support.
About Comstock
Comstock (NYSE: LODE) commercializes innovative technologies that contribute to global decarbonization by efficiently converting under-utilized natural resources, primarily, woody biomass into net zero renewable fuels, end of life metal extraction, and generative AI-enabled advanced materials synthesis and mineral discovery.
To learn more, please visit www.comstock.inc.
Forward-Looking Statements
This press release and any related calls or discussions may include forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. All statements, other than statements of historical facts, are forward-looking statements. The words “believe,” “expect,” “anticipate,” “estimate,” “project,” “plan,” “should,” “intend,” “may,” “will,” “would,” “potential” and similar expressions identify forward-looking statements but are not the exclusive means of doing so. Forward-looking statements include statements about matters such as: future industry market conditions; future explorations or acquisitions; future changes in our exploration activities; future prices and sales of, and demand for, our products; land entitlements and uses; permits; production capacity and operations; operating and overhead costs; future capital expenditures and their impact on us; operational and management changes (including changes in the Board of Directors); changes in business strategies, planning and tactics; future employment and contributions of personnel, including consultants; future land sales; investments, acquisitions, joint ventures, strategic alliances, business combinations, operational, tax, financial and restructuring initiatives, including the nature, timing and accounting for restructuring charges, derivative assets and liabilities and the impact thereof; contingencies; litigation, administrative or arbitration proceedings; environmental compliance and changes in the regulatory environment; offerings, limitations on sales or offering of equity or debt securities, including asset sales and associated costs; and future working capital, costs, revenues, business opportunities, debt levels, cash flows, margins, taxes, earnings and growth. These statements are based on assumptions and assessments made by our management considering their experience and their perception of historical and current trends, current conditions, possible future developments, and other factors they believe to be appropriate. Forward-looking statements are not guarantees, representations or warranties and are subject to risks and uncertainties, many of which are unforeseeable and beyond our control and could cause actual results, developments, and business decisions to differ materially from those contemplated by such forward-looking statements. Some of those risks and uncertainties include the risk factors set forth in our filings with the SEC and the following: adverse effects of climate changes or natural disasters; adverse effects of global or regional pandemic disease spread or other crises; global economic and capital market uncertainties; the speculative nature of gold or mineral exploration, and lithium, nickel and cobalt recycling, including risks of diminishing quantities or grades of qualified resources; metal recycling, processing or mining activities; costs, hazards and uncertainties associated with precious metal based activities, including environmentally friendly and economically enhancing clean mining and processing technologies, precious metal exploration, resource development, economic feasibility assessment and cash generating mineral production; costs, hazards and uncertainties associated with metal recycling, processing or mining activities; contests over our title to properties; potential dilution to our stockholders from our stock issuances, recapitalization and balance sheet restructuring activities; potential inability to comply with applicable government regulations or law; adoption of or changes in legislation or regulations adversely affecting our businesses; permitting constraints or delays; ability to achieve the benefits of business opportunities that may be presented to, or pursued by, us, including those involving battery technology, quantum computing and advanced materials development, and development of cellulosic technology in bio-fuels and related carbon-based material production; ability to successfully identify, finance, complete and integrate acquisitions, joint ventures, strategic alliances, business combinations, asset sales, and investments that we may be party to in the future; changes in the United States or other monetary or fiscal policies or regulations; interruptions in our production capabilities due to capital constraints; equipment failures; fluctuation of prices for gold or certain other commodities (such as silver, zinc, lithium, nickel, cobalt, cyanide, water, diesel, gasoline and alternative fuels and electricity); changes in generally accepted accounting principles; adverse effects of war, mass shooting, terrorism and geopolitical events; potential inability to implement our business strategies; potential inability to grow revenues; potential inability to attract and retain key personnel; interruptions in delivery of critical supplies, equipment and raw materials due to credit or other limitations imposed by vendors; assertion of claims, lawsuits and proceedings against us; potential inability to satisfy debt and lease obligations; potential inability to maintain an effective system of internal controls over financial reporting; potential inability or failure to timely file periodic reports with the Securities and Exchange Commission; potential inability to list our securities on any securities exchange or market or maintain the listing of our securities; and work stoppages or other labor difficulties. Occurrence of such events or circumstances could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations or cash flows, or the market price of our securities. All subsequent written and oral forward-looking statements by or attributable to us or persons acting on our behalf are expressly qualified in their entirety by these factors. Except as may be required by securities or other law, we undertake no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether because of new information, future events, or otherwise.
Neither this press release nor any related calls or discussions constitutes an offer to sell, the solicitation of an offer to buy or a recommendation with respect to any securities of the Company, the fund, or any other issuer.
Contact Information:
Investor Relations
RB Milestone Group
Tel (203) 487-2759
comstock@rbmilestone.com
Media
Zach Spencer
Comstock Inc.
Tel (775) 847-7532
questions@comstockinc.com
Source: Comstock Inc.
