James Tickner is a self-confessed ‘lab nerd’ who made the jump from particle physics research at the esteemed Oxford University to become one of the key players in a $637 million company due to list on the ASX on Friday.
Dr Tickner is chief technology officer at Chrysos Corporation, which believes it is revolutionising and modernising the way samples are tested in the gold industry with its giant PhotonAssay machines. The company was set up in 2016 to acquire technology developed by the physics expert when he was at the CSIRO.
The “Eureka” moment came soon after he arrived from the United Kingdom with his Australian wife more than two decades ago. His team at the CSIRO delved deeply into how high-powered X-rays made the nuclei of gold atoms move fast, enabling them to be detected and counted.
After 15 years of further work and serious commercialisation, it evolved into a quick, precise and environmentally friendly way of measuring the amount of gold in gold samples.
The industry had traditionally relied on a fire assay technique for hundreds of years, where samples are sent to a laboratory and heated to 1200 degrees in a much more time-consuming and cumbersome method.
A humble Dr Tickner plays down his role, but after prodding, reveals that it is essentially his discovery.
“My name is on the patent,” he says.
Eight of the PhotonAssay machines, which are the size of about three shipping containers side-by-side, are already installed in Australia and Africa. A further 25 are contracted out to 2024 for installation and deployment at mine sites or testing laboratories.
The company has pumped 2 million gold samples through its machines, but is still forecast to be making a bottomline loss of $4.7 million in 2022-23, as the rollout starts to gather pace.
The company is also working on a new range of smaller machines known as the “Atom”, about one third the size of the originals. “It’s still big,” he says.
The company’s chief executive, Dirk Treasure, who studied metallurgy at Perth’s Murdoch University, says Chrysos is playing the long game, and is in a strong position to potentially convert the entire gold mining industry away from fire assay
.
“It’s a marathon not a sprint,” he says.
Raising $183 million at $6.50 a share, C79 will begin trading on the ASX on Friday. At the issue price it has an indicative sharemarket capitalisation of $637 million.The CSIRO is trimming its stake from 22.6 per cent to 20.4 per cent.
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