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Carnegie receives $1m in royalties

Gold miner Metals X has paid almost $1 million in royalties to ASX-listed Carnegie Wave Energy over its Higginsville operations, 152km south of Kalgoorlie-Boulder.

Carnegie today said it had received a payment of $950,115 relating to all mining activities up to December 31.

Metals X secured what many considered the gold bargain of 2013 when it acquired the Higginsville and South Kalgoorlie operations from Alacer Gold for $40 million.

But it inherited a $150 an ounce royalty at the Trident underground mine at Higginsville, which Metals X managing director Peter Cook has called "crippling" to the point it places the mine's future in doubt.

Carnegie is paid the royalty because of its activities as a minerals exploration company in the 1990s prior to the development of its patented CETO wave energy technology.

"Carnegie is entitled to future cash royalty payments but they remain uncertain and depend on a number of variables including the future production and economic viability of future mining activities," Carnegie managing director Dr Michael Ottaviano said in a statement to the ASX.

Carnegie's focus remains its CETO technology, which converts ocean swell into zero-emission renewable power and desalinated freshwater.

After more than $70 million and a decade in development, Carnegie is commissioning three buoyant actuators in the coming months off HMAS Stirling, Australia's largest naval base, at Garden Island.

Industry Minister Ian Macfarlane last week described the technology as "one of the most exciting forms of renewable energy".

Carnegie shares were up 3.9 per cent at 5.3 cents mid-session, while Metals X was up 1 per cent higher at 19.2 cents.