ASX Tech Stocks: FBR's new bricklaying robot 'can lay a double-brick house in a day'

CNQ’s tech accelerates the dewatering process and could nab a slice of the US$259 billion tailings management pie
Spectur’s Statement of Works with Optus near-doubles to over $2 million
Robotic builder FRB says its next-generation Hadrian X robot has laid its first blocks

Metals recovery and water treatment company Clean TeQ Water (ASX:CNQ) has nabbed a distribution agreement with Stitchwise in South Africa for its ATA dewatering technology for backfilling.

The ATA technology uses smart chemistry to agglomerate the fine particles with the coarser ones in mine tailings, accelerating the dewatering process and improving the settleability and final consolidation of the tailings.

The tech also allows mines to use their existing tailings to backfill directly, enabling quicker advancement of the stope.

Mine tailings are a liquid slurry made of fine metal or mineral particles and water, produced from mined ore after it is crushed and finely ground to extract the valued metals and minerals – and can be an environmental and safety risk.

Not to mention, there’s money to be made in tailings management. The company says the global mining tailings management market size could expand at a compound annual growth rate of 6.56% to reach US$259 billion by 2027.

“The addition of the ATA technology to our product portfolio strengthens our position in mining, one of our primary target markets,” CEO Willem Vriesendorp said.

“We are delighted to work with Stitchwise, South Africa’s market leader in underground mining back-fill operations, in introducing ATA to this market.

“We envision this to be the first of many and are looking forward to supporting mining companies around the world who are looking to manage and reduce their tailings.”

Under the agreement, Stitchwise will have exclusive rights to use the ATA technology for its existing customer base throughout underground mining sites in South Africa – currently managing 65% of the total volume of backfill placed at all underground mines in the country.

Stitchwise will buy the chemical used in the process from Clean TeQ Water and pay a licence fee per ton of backfill treated by ATA and CNQ will also provide technical support for the 12 month contract.

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Other tech companies with news today:

SPECTUR (ASX:SP3)

Solar security, sensing and visual AI solutions and platforms company Spectur has nearly doubled its Statement of Works (SoW) with Optus via the receipt of a Variation to Statement of Work (VA) for $956k.

This now brings the value of the amended SoW to $2.02 million.

The updated SoW extends the multi-year rollout of Spectur hardware, services and software subscriptions to protect and service remote assets of Australian telecommunications companies; Optus and Australia Tower Networks.

Spectur commenced supporting Optus and associated companies (e.g. Australia Tower Networks) in 2020 and MD Gerard Dyson says that over this time Spectur solutions have reduced theft, vandalism and disruption, and “has led to a continuation and expansion in the deployment of Spectur platforms.”

“A key part of our strategy is to grow our income from institutional contracts,” he said.

“We see this step-up in our engagement with Optus as a validation of the return on investment that we can deliver for bluechip customers.”

“This Variation Order, which we will not record as a sale until the Purchase Orders are received, comes hot on the heels of a record start to sales in 2023. January and February sales results have continued the month-on-month growth that we saw in H1 and underpin our confidence in ongoing strong revenue growth for the balance of the financial year.”

FBR (ASX:FBR)

The robotic building company’s next-generation Hadrian X robot has laid its first blocks, autonomously passing blocks through the entire robotic system before laying them.

Notably, the next-generation Hadrian X features a shuttle block delivery system designed to be able to lay at speeds of up to 500 blocks per hour, which the company says would enable the completion of a standard double-brick house in a single day.

The company says the program will now move to a testing and calibration phase in which the team will optimise the next-generation Hadrian X system, increasing the laying speed before commencing field testing in the next quarter.

“Having successfully laid the most commonly used cement masonry block in the United States and many other countries around the world utilising our new shuttle delivery system, we now turn our focus toward ramping up our speed and building our first house structures at our testing facility over the coming months,” CEO Mike Pivac said.

“Although we have captured a large amount of footage of our technology in operation, due to its high value we will not be disclosing images or video at this time to preserve our commercial advantage for as long as possible.”

A second next-generation Hadrian X is in the manufacturing phase.