North entrepreneur to put waste to good use

Jan 22 2008 by Karen Dent, The Journal

SERIAL entrepreneur Karl Watkin is further boosting his green credentials with a $150m environmental joint venture in China.

The North-East businessman, who has a number of gold and copper interests in China, is part of a three-way partnership setting up a mining waste reprocessing factory in GejiuJinchan City in South-West China.

Alchemviro Ltd has joined forces with the Gejiu government and the GejiuJinchan Science and Technology Co Ltd in the initiative, which aims to produce 200,000 tons of iron ore and precious metals annually from mining waste.

Alchemviro, which will own 70% of the new plant and is registered as a Northumberland-based business, is the first overseas company to invest in Gejiu.

Mr Watkin says the name was created from a combination of “alchemy” and “environment”. The enterprise is the latest development in Mr Watkin’s business partnership with Frank Van Speybroek, a Belgian entrepreneur who is the chief executive of China Gold Mines.

Mr Van Speybroek said: “I have been in mining all my life and never before witnessed the substantial results of reprocessing mining waste which we are experiencing with Alchemviro, it’s the holy grail for both mining and the environment.”

The GejiuJinchan plant will be the second Alchemviro facility to be built in China by the partnership.

It has already constructed and sold a similar commercial factory in Zhizhong and Mr Watkin aims to open a further 12 such plants in China in the next three years.

The technology, which turns mining waste into useful base metals, was developed and patented in China. “Alchemviro is going to deliver a significant three-card trick in my three areas of interest: the environment, mining and China,” said Mr Watkin.

“Alchemviro will remove a complete blot on the landscape from many areas of China, clean up the environment and turn waste base metals into a quality product for the Chinese mining industry.

“I am extremely proud to have been involved in the creation and development of the company. The IPR (intellectual property rights) in Alchemviro was developed solely in China. The world – and particularly the UK – had better wake up to the fact that this is just one example of world class IPR which China will be bringing to the global market in the coming years.”

Mr Watkin, who announced the deal while in Beijing as part of Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s business delegation to China, says people in the UK have an outdated picture of China’s green credentials and its commitment to tackling climate change. “The media perception of China is at least three years behind the situation on the ground,” he said. “The Chinese government is more proactive about doing something about climate change than the British Government.”

In May last year, Mr Watkin acquired a nickel mining company, China Base Metals, which had an estimated $5bn in reserves. Mr Watkin said he planned to merge the company, which has mines on the Chinese border with Kazakhstan and Afghanistan, with his existing copper mining businesses in the country.

In 2000, he founded Teesside-based biodiesel firm D1 Oils.

The business’s refinery and European headquarters are in Middlesbrough and the jatropha crop used to create the biodiesel is grown in developing nations around the world.