Zero Emission Nickel Production

CANADA NICKEL LEADS THE PACK WITH THEIR NET-ZERO NICKEL GOAL

By Staff

High grade ore of nickel in peridotite ultramafic rocks.

With eyes increasingly on “critical minerals” as the electric vehicle market ramps up, one company is going beyond supplying the market fighting to reduce industry’s carbon footprint – they are joining in the fight.

In July 2020, Canada Nickel Company, Inc. announced it would be creating a wholly owned subsidiary, NetZero Metals, to begin the research and development of a processing facility to be located in the Timmins region, with the goal of utilizing existing technologies to produce zero-carbon nickel, cobalt and iron products.

“The electric vehicle industry and many other consumer sectors need zero-carbon metal this decade – not in a nebulous 2050 timeframe contemplated by many other resource companies,” said Mark Selby, Chair & CEO of Canada Nickel.

“As a result of the unique advantages of the Timmins region, with its close proximity to zero-carbon hydroelectricity and our Crawford Nickel-Cobalt Sulphide project (comprised largely of serpentine rock that naturally absorbs CO2 when exposed to air), Canada Nickel has the potential to develop zero-carbon products that our customers are expecting from the mining sector. With nickel as a preferred metal to power the clean energy revolution, our commitment to net zero-carbon production is the right step to take for the environment, for consumers and for our investors.”

Serpentine rock, the host rock comprising more than 90 per cent of the mass of the resource at the Crawford Nickel-Cobalt Sulphide project, has had numerous studies completed noting that the rock naturally absorbs carbon dioxide (CO2) when exposed to air through a naturally occurring process of spontaneous mineral carbonation.

The nickel industry faces a number of challenges because the current processing approach of laterite and sulphide ores generate a significant environmental footprint in the form of SO2 and CO2 emissions. These environmental challenges will only worsen given the industry supply profile, with the bulk of recent nickel supply growth and the main source of future production growth being nickel pig iron production in Indonesia, which, according to industry sources, uses 25-30 tonnes of coal to produce each tonne of nickel. When combined with other sources of CO2, this process generates approximately 90 tonnes of Scope 1 and Scope 2 CO2 emissions per tonne of nickel produced (see Figure 1).

An electric vehicle battery pack containing 50kg of nickel from this source, it would represent approximately four tonnes of CO2. emissions. Other sources of nickel supply growth that have additional environmental footprint issues are HPAL projects in Indonesia that are considering technologies such as deep-sea discharge of tailings that would result in ocean discharge of approximately 100 tonnes of material per tonne of nickel.

Figure 1 – Estimated Carbon Footprint (tonnes CO2/tonne of Nickel produced) Selected Types of Nickel Production – Existing Projects/Producers

Source: Canada Nickel analysis, WoodMackenzie Nickel Industry Costs

Working with First Nations

After the July 2020 announcement, Canada Nickel began making the necessary next steps in the process. In December 2020, the company signed Memorandums of Understanding with local First Nations whose traditional lands overlap with the Crawford Nickel-Cobalt Sulphide project. Matachewan and Mattagami First Nations signed on December 14 and the Taykwa Tagamou Nations (TTN) signed two days later.

“From the very beginning, our approach has been to work with First Nations and local stakeholders as partners in order to create shared value through economic opportunities, while also being respectful and responsible stewards of the natural environment,” said Selby. “We are grateful for the open and constructive communications we have had with them and look forward to moving forward together in the same spirit of partnership.”

The TTN MOU outlines the plan for the First Nation to own and develop the electrical transmission assets necessary to supply Crawford with cost-effective, reliable power and that Canada Nickel would rent these assets from TTN at a fair market rate. “Our community favours a development project like Canada Nickel’s that provides a positive economic impact, minimal environmental impacts and has the foresight to engage with Taykwa Tagamou during the early stages of development,” said TTN Chief Bruce Archibald.

Testing

Before the year was out, on December 23, 2020, Canada Nickel received good news from early metallurgy testing at Crawford that confirmed excellent nickel recovery of 46 per cent and 51 per cent from two locked cycle tests.

“These metallurgical results are a critical step forward for the Crawford project. The 46 per cent and 51 per cent recovery from samples, which bookend the grades in the higher-grade core, compare very favourably to similar projects. The company is incredibly pleased to deliver this excellent result in just six months, as a result of our team’s deep experience and the similarity of this deposit to other projects,” said Selby.

A month later, on January 25, 2021, the company announced even more encouraging results, with the new testing confirming nickel recovery of 52 per cent.

“The 52 per cent recovery from a higher-grade core sample marks another excellent step forward for the Crawford project,” said Selby. “Half of the recovered nickel is in a high-grade concentrate at 37 per cent; this result and other test work demonstrates our ability to deliver 40-50 per cent of the recovered nickel into a 35 per cent nickel concentrate, which would be the highest-grade nickel sulphide concentrate in the world, according to Wood Mackenzie.”

Preliminary Economic Assessment

By May of 2021, the results of their Preliminary Economic Assessment (PEA) had arrived and confirmed that the Crawford Nickel Sulphide project was backed up by robust economic data. The PEA showed an after-tax net present value (NPV8%) of $1.2 billion and an after-tax internal rate of return (IRR) of 16 per cent. For Canada Nickel, this demonstrated the potential to develop a phased conventional nickel sulphide concentrator producing nickel concentrates and magnetite concentrate. The operation is designed to have an open pit mine with a plant potential of 120,000 tonnes per day.

“The PEA is a milestone that enables a whole range of key activities as we aggressively advance the project towards production by the middle part of the decade,” said Selby. “We are immediately embarking on a feasibility study.” That feasibility study is expected to be completed by mid-2022.

Based on the PEA data, Skarn Associates, a metals and mining ESG research company, estimated that the project would have an industryleading, low-carbon footprint – lower than 99.7 per cent of existing global nickel production. When in operation, Crawford is expected to produce 2.05 tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) per tonne of nickel-equivalent production over the life of mine. This is 93 per cent lower than the industry average of 29 tonnes of CO2.

“This study demonstrates that Canada Nickel’s Crawford project can be a world-leading, large-scale, low-cost nickel supplier while possessing an extremely low carbon footprint,” said Selby. “These results reflect the mine’s low strip ratio and our ability to utilize the low-carbon hydroelectricity in the region and by using trolley trucks and electric shovels to reduce the consumption of diesel fuel.”

Despite the positive implications, Skarn’s CO2 footprint estimate didn’t even include the carbon offset expected from the natural sequestration of CO2 by the waste rock mentioned above. How that might factor into the equation became clearer later in 2021, when the results of tests done by researchers from Kingston Process Metallurgy and Queen’s University began rolling in. Initial lab scale testing demonstrated that Crawford tailings have the potential to capture 17.5 kg CO2 per tonne of tailings –more than three times the amount required to offset the project’s carbon footprint.

In the November 25, 2021 press release announcing the results, Selby outlined why this is so important. “Today’s announcement is a critical demonstration that our tailings have the fundamental capacity to capture CO2 in amounts that exceed what we believe will be required to achieve net-zero carbon production for our concentrates,” he said. “Any CO2 sequestration in excess of the 4.6 kg per tonne of tailings level would be potentially available for sale as carbon credits. Work is underway on a series of larger scale tests aimed at demonstrating that Crawford tailings can be exposed to enough CO2 for a sufficient time period to achieve the sequestration levels that were achieved at a lab scale. We look forward to seeing the results over the coming year.”

Canada Nickel’s Mark Selby.

Photo: video still, Canada Nickel

NORTH AMERICA’S FIRST BATTERY-GRADE COBALT REFINERY

Electra Battery Materials leads the way with their Timiskaming Shores asset

Thunder Bay Could be Home to $400 MILLION LITHIUM REFINERY

MINERAL RESOURCES, LOCAL INFRASTRUCTURE AND PROXIMITY TO NORTH AMERICAN AUTO MANUFACTURERS MAKES THUNDER BAY A NATURAL CHOICE

MESSAGE FROM THE Minister of Northern Development, Mines, Natural Resources and Forestry

UNLOCKING ONTARIO’S CRITICAL MINERALS

Niobium Exploration Heats Up

DEPOSITS DISCOVERED NEAR MARATHON RECEIVING RENEWED INTEREST AFTER ELEMENT NAMED A “STRATEGIC METAL”

MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT

GOLD AND CRITICAL MINERALS CONTINUE TO DOMINATE By Garry Clark Exploration in Ontario continues at a steady pace. The target of exploration companies and prospectors have been varied. The dominant commodity continues to be gold a with strong focus on “critical metals.”

Thunder Bay Could be Home to $400 MILLION LITHIUM REFINERY

MINERAL RESOURCES, LOCAL INFRASTRUCTURE AND PROXIMITY TO NORTH AMERICAN AUTO MANUFACTURERS MAKES THUNDER BAY A NATURAL CHOICE

OPA Media Hub · Mar 31, 2022

MESSAGE FROM THE Minister of Northern Development, Mines, Natural Resources and Forestry

UNLOCKING ONTARIO’S CRITICAL MINERALS

OPA Media Hub · Mar 31, 2022

NORTH AMERICA’S FIRST BATTERY-GRADE COBALT REFINERY

Thunder Bay Could be Home to $400 MILLION LITHIUM REFINERY

MESSAGE FROM THE Minister of Northern Development, Mines, Natural Resources and Forestry

Niobium Exploration Heats Up

MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT

Thunder Bay Could be Home to $400 MILLION LITHIUM REFINERY

MESSAGE FROM THE Minister of Northern Development, Mines, Natural Resources and Forestry

OPA Prospector

Categories

Social Footprints