Technical briefing · Purposeful Stride LLC
FRONTINUS
Engineered hydrothermal harvest. Directional laterals in MORB, neutrally buoyant printed columns, and vertical fractional distillation of black- and white-smoker brine into high-purity mineral paste.
Principal Michael D. Wuchevich · Oklahoma, United States · Field target: Mid-Atlantic Ridge MORB, USA–Greenland corridor
Complete review
Natural smokers already leach metals from oceanic crust and dump most of them into a plume. FRONTINUS does two things conventional SMS mining does not: it creates controllable vents with multi-lateral drilling into the reaction zone, and it fractionates the brine in situ inside a printed vertical column so sulfides, sulfates and traces report to separate collector plates.
The product is not a demolished chimney. It is a dewatered paste whose zoning is closer to a chemical plant than to a mill. That is why offtakers should move before tonnes become visible on a global balance sheet — quality hits treatment charges and payable formulas first.
- First-field base
- $353 M
- Low / high
- $208–606 M
- Column height
- 20–50 m
- Reaction zone
- 350–425 °C
What to do now
01
Qualify paste
Run impurity tables on zoned sulfide vs sulfate lots. Do not treat this as bulk SMS ore.
02
Reserve offtake
Options and LOIs before 2032. First cargoes reprice clean concentrate, not mine supply.
03
Watch ISA / EEZ
Permitting is the slow path. Legal watch is cheaper than a stranded smelter trial.