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CPS Assembles team of experts to design Manitoba solar glass plant

Canadian Premium Sand Inc. is pleased to announce that it has engaged an international consortium of Engineering, Procurement and Construction (“EPC”) firms to complete detailed design and pre-construction engineering related to its patterned solar glass manufacturing facility being developed in Selkirk, Manitoba.

The EPC consortium consists of five complementary professional services firms:

• Henry F. Teichmann, Inc. (“HFT”) – a U.S. specialty engineering contractor that has over 75 years of expertise delivering dependable turnkey glass manufacturing facilities. With regional offices in the UK, China, the Philippines, Singapore, and St. Croix, HFT has design-built over 300 production lines throughout 47 countries for some of the most respected names in the glass manufacturing industry.
• Fives Group (“Fives”) – a French industrial engineering group with operations in nearly 30 countries including a division focused on the design and installation of energy-efficient technologies for glass melting, roll pattern machinery and annealing Lehrs specific to the production of solar glass.  Fives has designed and installed its technologies in over 20 solar glass projects over the past decade.
• Bottero S.p.A. (“Bottero”) – an Italian manufacturer of highly automated machinery for glass production and cold-end processing lines.  Often working in partnership with Fives and HFT, Bottero has significant experience in the design, supply, and installation of patterned solar glass equipment in over 50 facilities since inception.
• ELRUS Aggregate Systems (“Elrus”) – a specialized Canadian manufacturer of aggregate processing equipment. Since 1975, Elrus has been developing innovative and reliable solutions including a complete package of equipment, parts, service, engineering, and design support to maximize the efficient recovery of valuable minerals.
• PCL Constructors Inc. (“PCL”) – Canada’s largest contracting organization with diverse operations in the civil infrastructure, heavy industrial, and buildings markets. Supported by a strategic presence in more than 30 major centers, including a significant presence in Manitoba, PCL has over 100 years of client-focused delivery and annual construction volumes of more than $8 billion.

The combined expertise of the EPC consortium will deliver an integrated design and process configuration utilizing the most capital-efficient technology to meet the current and future solar glass specifications the Company has received from its growing base of customers.   Due to strong expressions of interest received from customers to date, the Company is investigating the opportunity to increase the solar glass production of Phase 1 over that contemplated in the FEED study.  In addition to better serving indicated customer demand, the production increase will serve to improve the already attractive project economics.

“After conducting an extensive request-for-proposal and bid evaluation process, we are pleased to align ourselves with this highly experienced and multi-disciplined EPC consortium,” stated Company President & CEO, Glenn Leroux. “As we progress the development of our solar glass manufacturing project to shovel-ready status, this group of professionals will deliver a comprehensive design to achieve our goal of manufacturing the highest-quality and lowest-carbon solar glass available. Additionally, with the design process focused on value engineering to drive operational and capital cost efficiencies, CPS will be positioned to maximize our already strong project economics.”

A key outcome of the pre-construction phase will be a capital cost estimate that will carry a +/-5% level of certainty, thereby de-risking the project in anticipation for reaching shovel-ready status in Q1 2023.

In addition to this, CPS continues to advance other development initiatives that will contribute to shovel-ready status including, permitting, silica sand resource upgrading and testing, and ongoing negotiations to convert formal expressions of interest to commercial offtake agreements.