VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Jan. 21, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- EnviroGold Global Limited (CSE: NVRO | OTCQB: ESGLF | FSE: YGK) (“EnviroGold” or the “Company”) today announced a technical advancement that is expected to significantly expand the addressable market for its proprietary NVRO Process™, following a significantly improved understanding of sulfide pre-concentration dynamics within the process flowsheet.
This advancement is expected to improve project economics of the NVRO Process™ across a broader range of tailings deposits, including lower-grade tailings previously excluded under earlier screening criteria. Management believes this represents an important step in the Company’s commercial strategy, increasing the number of potentially viable commercial opportunities and strengthening EnviroGold’s exposure to precious and critical metals at a time of elevated global demand and heightened supply chain focus.
Re-Defining the NVRO Market Opportunity
Historically, EnviroGold applied two principal criteria when assessing whether a tailings deposit was a suitable candidate for the NVRO Process™:
- Metallurgy amenable to the NVRO Process™, specifically metal-bearing sulfides containing refractory precious and critical metals; and
- Sufficient metal value per tonne, historically in the range of approximately US$350 per tonne, to support economic processing.
These criteria currently support a robust commercial pipeline, but they also exclude a large number of tailings deposits where bulk metal concentration was too low, even though meaningful silver, gold and other metal value remained locked within the sulfide fraction.
Tailings are considered waste precisely because the overall metal concentration is too low for direct smelting or the tailings are too difficult to process. At its core, the NVRO Process™ can be viewed as a metal concentration technology, designed to process and upgrade complex, or low-grade material into a saleable, high-value product.
Proven Metal Upgrading
Using the Company’s previously disclosed Customer base case (Q3 press release), the NVRO Process™ demonstrated:
- 125 tonnes per hour of solids feed
- Upgraded to approximately 16.8 tonnes per hour of residue sold to smelters
- Representing an approximate 7.4× concentration upgrade
This outcome validated the core NVRO value proposition for precious and critical metal recovery and demonstrated the ability to produce a smelter-grade concentrate from tailings that were previously considered unviable.
EnviroGold intentionally avoided deposits below the above selection criteria, as material upgraded by NVRO alone would not be saleable without cyanidation, which is increasingly difficult to permit and inconsistent with the Company’s environmental strategy.
Lower-Grade Tailings Now Become Viable
EnviroGold’s sulfide pre-concentration dynamics significantly expands the Company’s commercial opportunities.
What ultimately matters is the total amount of recoverable metal within a deposit, not just the value per tonne of bulk tailings material. If tailings contain a sufficiently large volume of metal, lower-grade tailings can be just as attractive, or more attractive, than higher-grade deposits.
By selectively concentrating the metal-bearing sulfides before leaching, the NVRO Process™ can be applied more efficiently to select tailings deposits previously considered uneconomic. This approach upgrades the metal into a smaller, higher-value stream and reduces the overall volume of material to be processed. As a result, pre-concentration has the potential to reduce capital intensity, improving project economics and expanding the NVRO Process™ target market.
A Larger Market for NVRO
Based on this work, EnviroGold has updated its site-selection framework to focus on:
- Metallurgy amenable to the NVRO Process™ (metal-bearing sulfides); and
- Sufficient total recoverable sulfides containing precious and critical metals.
This shift significantly expands the Company’s addressable market by including lower-grade tailings deposits that contain significant precious and critical metal value within recoverable sulfides, particularly silver, whose strategic importance has been reinforced by strong industrial demand and elevated prices.
Given that NVRO’s primary products are precious and critical metals, particularly gold and silver, whose values continue to be supported by macroeconomic and geopolitical factors, management believes this development strengthens EnviroGold’s long-term growth opportunity.
Grant Freeman, Chief Executive Officer, commented, “The work undertaken during the 2025 Optimization Program has meaningfully changed how we assess NVRO project opportunities. By effectively separating value from waste through pre-concentration, we can consider a broader range of tailings deposits that were previously screened out. This is an important milestone for EnviroGold, as it expands its addressable market, has the potential to improve project economics, and increases our exposure to precious and critical metal prices. In testing conducted to date, the NVRO Process™ has achieved gold recovery of up to 99.55% and silver recovery of up to 98.96%.”
By broadening the range of tailings deposits considered for evaluation, EnviroGold expects to increase the number of potential licensing opportunities over time and reinforces its strategy to build a global, capital-light “Metals Without Mining” technology business.
About EnviroGold Global
EnviroGold Global is a clean-technology company enabling the recovery of high-value precious, base and critical metals from mine waste and tailings using its proprietary NVRO Process™. By unlocking metals from existing, above-ground assets, EnviroGold delivers scalable, lower-impact metal recovery solutions that complement traditional mining operations and align with global ESG frameworks and critical-minerals strategies.
Additional information is available at www.envirogoldglobal.com.
CONTACTS:
Investor Cubed
Neil Simon, CEO
+1 647 258 3310
nsimon@investor3.ca
ir@envirogoldglobal.com
Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the Canadian Securities Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release.
Forward-Looking Statements
This news release contains "forward-looking information" and "forward-looking statements" (collectively, "forward-looking information") within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation. Forward-looking information includes, but is not limited to, statements regarding: the potential for EnviroGold's proprietary NVRO Process™ to be applied to a broader range of tailings deposits, including lower-grade deposits; the belief that recent technical advancements may significantly expand the Company's addressable market; management's expectations regarding the economic application of the NVRO Process™ and resulting commercial opportunities; the potential for reduced capital expenditures and improved economics through pre-concentration; expectations regarding gold and silver recovery rates and their relevance to future deployments; and the Company's strategy to expand its "Metals Without Mining" technology platform and increase long-term growth opportunities.
Forward-looking information is based on a number of assumptions, including but not limited to: the results of testing being indicative of future performance; the availability of suitable tailings deposits; the ability to obtain necessary permits and approvals; market demand for critical and precious metals; the ability to enter into commercial or licensing arrangements; and that macroeconomic and geopolitical conditions will continue to support metal prices.
Forward-looking information involves known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors that may cause actual results, performance, or achievements to differ materially from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking information. These risks and uncertainties include, among others: the inability to replicate lab-scale or test results at commercial scale; changes to the regulatory environment; delays in permitting or development; failure to identify commercially viable deposits; fluctuations in commodity prices; market volatility; and other risks disclosed in the Company's public filings on SEDAR+ (www.sedarplus.ca).
Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking information. The Company undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law.
