An old factory in Welland, Ont., sat derelict for years — until someone discovered it could be worth billions

Real estate 'ambulance chaser' Steve Charest's specialty was buying abandoned industrial properties and redeveloping them into homes or offices. Then one day — just like in that old TV show The Beverly Hillbillies — he stumbled on a critical mineral motherlode.

Steve Charest looked at 65 Canal Bank Street, a sprawling former industrial property in Welland, Ont., that had long since ceased operating, and saw an opportunity where most everyone else only saw pollution.Like a real-life Canadian version of the Beverly Hillbillies, he bought the property and discovered it was more valuable than anyone imagined. There wasn’t any oil, like in the show about the backwoods family who struck it rich, but there was a refined byproduct of fossil fuels: synthetic graphite.