The Elements of Innovation Discovered
The Elements of Innovation Discovered
Metal Tech News - February 7, 2024
Left to right: British Columbia Deputy Minister, Ministry of Jobs, Economic Development & Innovation Fazil Mihlar, FPX Nickel CEO Martin Turenne, Sumitomo Metal Mining Mineral Resources Division General Manager Eiichi Fukuda, and Consulate-General of Japan in Vancouver, B.C. Kohei Maruyama during a Jan. 22 MOU signing ceremony.
A 13-gram nugget of awaruite, a nickel-iron alloy, found in Oregon.
Brucite is a mineral often associated with nickel deposits that react with carbon dioxide to form magnesium carbonate, a mineral that stores the CO2 for geological scales of time.
The prospect of producing low-carbon nickel needed for lithium-ion batteries and stainless steel at FPX Nickel Corp.'s Baptiste project in central British Columbia has captured the attention of a broad array of global corporations and investors.
A road-accessible project about three miles (five kilometers) from rail connected to the deep-water port at Prince Rupert, B.C., the Baptiste deposit at Decar hosts 8.44 billion pounds of nickel and 142 million lb of cobalt in 1.82 billion metric tons of indicated resource averaging 0.21% nickel and 0.004% cobalt.
In addition to its ready access to low-cost transportation, Baptiste boasts a fortuitous combination of two minerals that offer major advantages when it comes to lowering the carbon footprint of mining and refining the nickel found there.
These environmental benefits have drawn enormous interest from international mining, steelmaking, and battery manufacturing firms. This includes Sumitomo Metal Mining Co. (SMM), which recently invested C$14.45 million to acquire a 9.9% stake in FPX and the potential source of low-carbon nickel it is pursuing.
"We expect that this investment will establish a strong relationship between SMM and FPX, with the aim to contribute to SMM's long term production target of 150,000 tonnes (metric tons) of nickel per year," said Eiichi Fukuda, executive officer and general manager of Sumitomo Metal Mining's mineral resources division.
FPX Nickel President and CEO Martin Turenne said Sumitomo Metal Mining's investment further validates Baptiste's potential to be a significant source of nickel needed for the clean energy transition.
"SMM is one of the world's largest nickel producers, with peer-leading expertise in mining, processing and refining products in the stainless steel and electric vehicle battery supply chains," he said. "FPX is pleased to be one of SMM's preferred partners as they look to expand their nickel production profile and diversify their supply chain to allied partners in North America."
As a result of the SMM investment, Outokumpu Oyj, a high-performance stainless-steel producer out of Finland that previously invested in FPX, exercised its right to maintain its 9.9% equity ownership in the junior nickel mining company, and an unnamed strategic investor maintained its interest at 9.95%. The extra shares purchased by these FPX investors added C$6.2 million (US$4.6 million) to the company's coffers.
One of the big carbon reduction advantages Baptiste offers is that sulfur was not present when the nickel-cobalt minerals were deposited. In the absence of sulfur, a natural nickel-iron alloy known as awaruite was formed.
A 13-gram nugget of awaruite, a nickel-iron alloy, found in Oregon.
The mining and refining advantages of awaruite over the sulfide and laterite nickel deposits that supply most of the world's nickel are twofold. First, the mineral is highly magnetic, which allows it to be recovered with magnets instead of chemicals. The second, and more important quality when it comes to reducing carbon dioxide emissions, is awaruite does not require energy-intensive smelting prior to the refining process.
The easier recovery into a high-quality concentrate that does not require smelting or high-pressure acid leaching means the nickel can be produced with a smaller environmental and carbon footprint than most other conventional nickel sources.
These advantages are so important that the Japan Organization for Metals and Energy Security (JOGMEC) – a Japanese government corporation focused on securing mineral and energy resources – has forged a partnership with FPX to carry out a global search for awaruite.
This exploration for deposits of the nickel-iron mineral is being funded by JOGMEC and executed by FPX.
"JOGMEC's interest in forming a generative alliance represents a significant endorsement of the technical and economic viability of awaruite nickel deposits, which we believe represent a disruptive new source of low-carbon nickel supply for the electric vehicle battery supply chain," Turenne said last April when the partnership was announced.
JOGMEC and Prime Planet Energy & Solutions (PPES), a joint venture between Toyota Motor Company and Panasonic Corp., have also entered into a preliminary agreement with FPX to explore collaborative opportunities for the vertical integration of nickel production from Baptiste.
"By combining FPX's low-carbon nickel mining process and PPES' battery knowhow and technology, we are sure to realize further decarbonization and cost reductions in this field," said Prime Planet Energy & Solutions President and CEO Hiroaki Koda.
In addition to lowering the amount of carbon dioxide that needs to be emitted to produce nickel from Baptiste, the mining of this central B.C. deposit could result in the permanent capture and storage of CO2.
This is because the nickel at Baptiste is deposited in ultramafic rocks enriched with brucite, a magnesium mineral that is particularly good at absorbing CO2 and transforming it into a solid magnesium carbonate that is stable on a geological timescale.
Brucite is a mineral often associated with nickel deposits that react with carbon dioxide to form magnesium carbonate, a mineral that stores the CO2 for geological scales of time.
By digging up and crushing the ultramafic rock to extract the nickel, the mining at Baptiste would expose the brucite to open air, an interaction that will transform atmospheric CO2 into stone.
This means that the tailings produced from mining the nickel have the potential to offset the CO2 emitted during mining, which would make the nickel a net-zero carbon product that would be particularly attractive to battery manufacturers, automakers, and stainless-steel makers that are currently working to reduce their own carbon footprints.
After several years of studying the benefits of capturing CO2 as part of future mining of the Baptiste nickel-cobalt project, FPX formed CO2 Lock Corp. as a subsidiary focused on pursuing low-cost and permanent carbon capture and storage at scale.
Using brucite-rich ultramafic rocks from the same area of B.C. where Baptiste is located, CO2 Lock is testing both the idea of pumping CO2 into underground deposits for permanent storage and storing it in crushed material on the surface. The above-ground storage will provide data on the quantity of CO2 that could be stored in Baptiste tailings and the best way to make that happen.
The fortuitous combination of awaruite and brucite in the same deposit is attracting international interest in Baptiste and the global search for other nickel deposits that have one or both CO2-reducing minerals.
In the meantime, FPX will use the investments from international partners to advance toward the potential future production of green nickel at Baptiste, a central B.C. project that is readily accessible to global markets.
With more than 16 years of covering mining, Shane is renowned for his insights and and in-depth analysis of mining, mineral exploration and technology metals.
Reader Comments(0)