Categories: Energy
Topics: General Energy

MineHub Technologies (TSX-V: MHUB)(OTC: MHUBF) CEO Andrea Aranguren on Synergizing the Digital Commodities Supply Chain Market via New Strategic Partnership with Abaxx Technologies

 

Gerardo Del Real: This is Gerardo Del Real with Resource Stock Digest. Joining me today is the woman, the myth, the legend, and also the president & CEO of MineHub Technologies — Ms. Andrea Aranguren. Andrea, it's an absolute pleasure to have you on. How are you today?

Andrea Aranguren: I'm doing great, Gerardo. Thank you so much for having me.

Gerardo Del Real: Let's get right into it. You announced a deal, a partnership, today that is going to be, I think, transformational for many, many years to come. And I want to touch on the details of it.

First off, I want to congratulate you. And secondly, I would love for you to provide a brief background on your very accomplished history of successes because for a company like MineHub that currently has a market cap of roughly C$23 million, to have the experience leading the board that you bring to the table is really impressive to me.

Andrea Aranguren: Thank you. Yes, I have spent most of my career in physical commodities markets, primarily on the operations and logistics side. And I've worked in a variety of different industries, not just metals and mining, although I've done a lot of time in the copper aluminum markets. 

I’ve worked in environmental markets as well as in other industries like hair care and infant formula, all of which gave me a really important perspective in terms of the importance of digitizing the supply chain more broadly — not just within metals. 

And you'll quickly learn that whether you're talking about copper or LNG or carbon credits… or even hair care bottle caps… a lot of the challenges are actually quite similar. And all of those industries could benefit and are desperately in need of digital solutions.

Gerardo Del Real: It's funny, one of the quotes that really stood out to me, and I forget where I heard it, but you mentioned that the commodities space is a trillion dollar global market that operates in the Stone Age. And I thought that captured the opportunity really well. Again, highlighting the fact that MineHub's market cap is just roughly C$23 million. 

I want to talk about the partnership that you announced today. And I want to go ahead and just be quiet and let you provide the context because, as I mentioned off-air, I think you have picked a heck of a dance partner, and I think the fit is beautiful. But I'll let you provide the context on the structure of the deal.

Andrea Aranguren: Sure, and we couldn't agree more. I think that from a philosophical perspective, in terms of our mission, we certainly share a joint mission to digitize and transform the commodities market by leveraging the power of digital solutions. 

Of course, besides that philosophical match, our platforms are also incredibly complementary. What I'm really excited about is that there are many short-term opportunities that we can leverage from the partnership in terms of the Abaxx team leveraging our platform for the actual fulfillment of the physical delivery of the different commodities. 

If you've heard me talk about our future growth plans, I almost always talk about expansion into new commodity markets. We're very focused on copper and aluminum, and we've been expanding into different metals markets. But core to our ability to drive revenue over the long-term will be our ability to expand into additional physical commodities markets. And this partnership will help us to accelerate that almost immediately.

So that's incredibly exciting. And then, the other aspect, which may be less obvious, is that Abaxx also has a team that's built out some really interesting technology on the identity front, and they have a chat tool, which is extremely interesting. Also, almost coincidentally, many of our customers are asking more and more for the ability to really centralize and consolidate conversations and the exchange of dialogue away from email onto our platform. 

And so by potentially incorporating Abaxx's incredibly secure and advanced chat functionality into our platform, that will also help to facilitate communication between all of the ecosystem members that are connected to our platform.

And then, from the Abaxx perspective, they're naturally very focused today on LNG — and carbon and nickel soon after. But I think there's also an opportunity for Abaxx to leverage our traction within the copper and aluminum markets, as well, onto their platform. 

So that network effect of really capitalizing on the traction that each company has had separately, and now coming together to join forces, will really magnify that by providing a more comprehensive solution to more markets.

Gerardo Del Real: In the short-term… and by short-term, I mean, let's talk through the end of the year… what can we expect as shareholders to hear from MineHub as far as the short-term potential monetization of some of the opportunities that have presented themselves through this partnership?

Andrea Aranguren: I think most immediately, we will first take a look at integrating our solutions and creating what we will view as premium services to generate additional revenue streams. 

By leveraging all of the points I just spoke to, we can actually monetize that as a premium product that we’ll sell to our customers or a premium product that Abaxx sells to their customers or participants. 

In the short-term, I think that's the most likely opportunity. Over time, there are a lot of really exciting things that we can do together in terms of connecting physical and financial markets and in terms of helping manufacturers and producers to think about hedging carbon risk. 

Longer-term, I think there's a lot more that we'll do. But in the short-term, it'll be really focused on integrating our existing functionality and creating a new revenue stream for either or both companies.

Gerardo Del Real: Exciting times. I appreciate the time today, Andrea. And thank you for getting us out of the Stone Age because it's way overdue. Anything you’d like to add to that?

Andrea Aranguren: No, just incredibly excited by the magnitude of opportunities. When we sit down and workshop with the Abaxx team, it's not the situation of, which of these three things should we focus on? It's which of these 50 things do we want to start with? 

There are just so many different things that we can do together, and that's what I'm most excited about. And the caliber of the team and the magnitude of what we've been able to accomplish together, I think, is a perfect fit for MineHub.

Gerardo Del Real: I couldn't agree more. I'm looking forward to seeing you all execute together. Thank you again, Andrea.

Andrea Aranguren: Thank you, Gerardo.

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