ORION

ORION^™ is Alnitak Resources's proprietary mineral processing campus model — a complete metallurgical, environmental, operational, and Technical Support Agreement architecture for converting artisanal and small-scale mining activity into mercury-free, environmentally compliant, institutionally bankable production at industrial scale.

ORION is not a single facility. It is a replicable model that deploys at multiple sites under common technical, environmental, and ESG standards, integrated end-to-end with NEXUS^™ data infrastructure. Where it deploys, ORION becomes the centralized processing counterparty to networks of formalized Primary Mining License holders within a defined operational catchment area.

Artisanal and small-scale mining represents a substantial share of global production for several strategic minerals — including a meaningful fraction of annual global gold supply. The sector employs tens of millions of people across emerging markets and is the source of livelihoods that cannot and should not be eliminated.

It is also where the worst environmental and social outcomes in mining concentrate: mercury-based amalgamation, child labor, unsafe working conditions, ecosystem destruction, and the elite capture of mineral revenues that should benefit the producing communities and the host nation.

ORION exists because the institutional answer to artisanal mining is not prohibition. It is formalization, technical support, and integration with industrial-scale processing infrastructure that meets the standards institutional capital and ESG-conscious offtake counterparties require. ORION is the infrastructure that makes that integration operational at scale.

Each ORION campus is a centralized industrial processing facility deployed within a defined operational catchment area. The campus operates a complete mercury-free metallurgical circuit: primary gravity concentration through high-throughput centrifugal concentrators, froth flotation circuits for sulfide-associated mineralization, and Carbon-in-Pulp or Carbon-in-Leach cyanide circuits operated to international environmental and safety standards. Output is high-purity doré or concentrate suitable for direct refinery consignment.

Around the metallurgical core, the campus integrates a full-function on-site assay and metallurgical laboratory, closed-loop water management infrastructure, environmental monitoring systems, occupational health and safety frameworks, and community engagement infrastructure.

The relationship with the artisanal mining sector is structured through Technical Support Agreements aligned with applicable host-nation frameworks — including, in Tanzania, the Mining (Technical Support to Small Scale Miners) Regulations 2025. The TSA architecture provides Primary Mining License holders with training, equipment, financial support, and access to ORION processing infrastructure in exchange for formalized supply commitments and adherence to common operational and environmental standards.

Every ORION campus operates under NEXUS Master Service Agreement, ensuring continuous audit-grade ESG and chain-of-custody reporting from the point of ore delivery through to refined product.

For host nations, ORION produces formalized employment, tax revenue from a previously informal sector, reduced environmental liability from mercury-based artisanal processing, and structural integration of the ASM sector into national mineral strategy.

For artisanal miners and Primary Mining License holders, ORION produces stable processing relationships, training, equipment, and a credible pathway out of mercury-based amalgamation and into industrial-grade processing — with the income stability that formalization makes possible.

For institutional capital and offtake counterparties, ORION produces minerals certified through NEXUS chain-of-custody data infrastructure as having been produced to international ESG standards. The output is eligible for premium-priced offtake into supply chains where mercury-tainted, conflict-affected, or non-traceable production is excluded.

For Alnitak Resources, ORION produces a replicable, institutionally bankable model for engaging with the artisanal sector — converting what would otherwise be an unmanageable ESG and reputational liability into a structured, auditable, scalable platform asset.