Tag Archives: cobalt

Blackstone Minerals engages Metso for nickel, cobalt refinery plans in Vietnam

Base metals, Environmental, Mineral processing, Mineral project development, Mining services, Sustainable mining, , , , , , , , , ,

Blackstone Minerals Ltd has announced the inclusion of Metso as the technology supplier for the definitive feasibility study of the company’s pCAM (precursor cathode active material) processing plant in its Ta Khoa refinery in Vietnam.

Metso is already involved in the design of the pCAM plant and will also conduct independent pCAM test work to validate the nickel and cobalt sulphates generated during the pilot program for suitability in pCAM generation, the OEM says.

Metso is currently designing the pCAM plant with Wood, providing experience and engineering technical support.

Scott Williamson, Managing Director at Blackstone Minerals Ltd, said: “Blackstone intends to leverage off Metso’s engineering services and know-how into the pCAM facility design, thus de-risking the project and confirming Blackstone’s intent to be a real player in the pCAM space. Securing another world leader to the Ta Khoa project is yet another jigsaw piece in the battery value chain puzzle. Blackstone continues to look forward to project success as it marches towards developing the greenest and most resilient nickel business in the world.”

Blackstone highlighted the OEM’s high value technology in the context of the pCAM facility design, such as the modular OKTOP® reactors (with industrial references for scaling-up pCAM precipitation processes), Larox® filtration technologies and Courier® HX continuous product quality analyser equipment to enable precision control and real-time optimisation.

“Metso has shown that precursors precipitated with OKTOP reactor technology are proven to meet the required chemical and physical properties for high-performance cathode active material,” it said.

Rudi Rautenbach, Director, Minerals Sales, Asia-Pacific, Metso, said: “We are confident that our experience in nickel processing and battery metals technologies will contribute positively to the project. Many of our offerings that are planned to be used in this project are selected from our range of Planet Positive products, which are demonstrably more energy or water efficient than the industry benchmark or Metso’s previous generation products in the market, to help our customers cut their CO2 emissions and/or to achieve other sustainability priorities. We believe these are all in line with Blackstone’s objectives towards developing the greenest and most resilient nickel business in the world.”

Metso says it provides sustainable technology and equipment for the entire lithium, nickel, and cobalt production chain from the mine to battery materials and black mass recycling with project scopes ranging from equipment packages to plant deliveries. Metso has its own pCAM testing facilities.

A February 2022 prefeasibility study on the 90%-owned Ta Khoa project outlined first concentrate production in in 2025, ramping up to nameplate design of 8 Mt/y in 2027. It expected a steady-state average annual nickel output (recovered in concentrate) of circa-18,000 t/y and steady-state average annual concentrate production of circa-225,000 t/y. The project also came with a steady-state refining capacity of 400,000 t/y, with first production of NCM811 precursor material commencing in early 2025.

Gradiant’s process water solutions to be used at SLB, Rio Tinto operations

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Gradiant, a global solutions provider and developer for advanced water and wastewater treatment, has announced partnerships with SLB (formerly Schlumberger), Rio Tinto and an Australia-based global mining company to, it says, improve productivity and sustainability in the mining industry with a focus on reducing carbon and water footprints.

The projects are in the US and Western Australia for resource recovery of critical minerals and industrial process water.

Gradiant’s collaborations with SLB and the Australia-based global mining company target the recovery of valuable metals such as lithium, nickel and cobalt. The mining of these materials is highly complex and water intensive. Moreover, with increased market demand and environmental regulations, businesses must identify cost-effective and sustainable technologies. Gradiant’s technologies enable sustainable, efficient and economical water governance through end-to-end customised solutions, it says.

Gradiant’s work with SLB integrates Gradiant’s technologies to concentrate lithium solution with SLB’s direct lithium extraction (DLE) and production technology process – allowing reduced time-to-market and environmental footprint for lithium extraction. The solution enhances the impact of the sustainable lithium extraction process by enabling high levels of lithium concentration in a fraction of the time required by conventional methods while reducing carbon emissions, energy consumption and capital costs compared with thermal-based methods, the company says.

Back in October, Gradiant and Schlumberger entered into a partnership to introduce a key sustainable technology into the production process for battery-grade lithium compounds.

For Rio Tinto, Gradiant will deliver a new facility in Western Australia to replace ageing facilities by employing the company’s proprietary RO Infinity membrane technologies and SmartOps Digital AI into existing mining operations. Gradiant has introduced two chemical-free technologies into operations to minimise chemical consumption and waste discharge, it said.

Lastly, Gradiant’s RO Infinity and SmartOps technologies will concentrate complex wastewater from nickel and cobalt production at a new facility in Western Australia for a global mining company, resulting in up to 75% cost savings with lower carbon and water footprints compared with conventional technologies, it says.

Prakash Govindan, COO of Gradiant, said: “Mining is a uniquely complex industrial sector with challenges of remote locations, large volumes of waste, wide fluctuations in water quality and the high-value end-product that demands relentless design and operations efficiencies. The real opportunity for water technology in the mining industry is resource recovery in wastewater coupled with machine learning AI. We are excited to work with the world’s leading mining operators to enter a new era of sustainable resource recovery. This is made possible by Gradiant’s deep understanding of the complex chemistry that underlies the production processes, which is then operationalised by machine learning digital technology.”

Vale partners with MIRARCO on bioleaching, bioremediation processing project

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Vale Energy Transition Metals, a leading global supplier of nickel, copper, cobalt and platinum group metals, says it is moving to accelerate commercial recovery of critical minerals from mine waste in partnership with the Mining Innovation, Rehabilitation, and Applied Research
Corporation (MIRARCO) at Laurentian University, in Canada.

As part of efforts to reduce mine waste and capture additional value from mined material, Vale has committed C$875,000 ($635,769) over five years to MIRARCO to support a new industrial research chair program in biomining and bioremediation. The announcement was made during the Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada 2023 Convention, in Toronto, Canada.

The industrial research chair program, led by Dr Nadia Mykytczuk (pictured in the centre), will develop, pilot and work towards commercialising bioleaching and bioremediation processes including efforts to recover nickel and cobalt from low-grade pyrrhotite tailings and other waste.

Luke Mahony, Chief Technical Officer at Vale Energy Transition Metals (pictured second from left), said: “This builds on our extensive R&D history and proven track record of lab-to-plant process development and represents a significant opportunity for waste-stream reprocessing here in Ontario. We see this as a triple-win, with potential to reduce liabilities, accelerate commercial recovery of critical minerals and capture additional value from mined material.”

The Government of Ontario will also contribute C$750,000 through the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corp. to support this industrial research chair program.

Greg Rickford, Minister of Northern Development (pictured second from right), said: “The new and improved Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corporation is supporting innovative solutions in the resource extraction sector that will change the way we see mining traditionally. By partnering with Vale and Laurentian University, we are committing to Made in Ontario solutions that will reduce mine waste and enhance value for materials already involved in the mining process.”

Dr Mykytczuk, President and CEO of MIRARCO, said: “This funding and collaboration will accelerate the development of new tools to help us extract value from wastes, producing the metals we need in an environmentally sustainable way.”

Vale Energy Transition Metals is one of the world’s largest producers of high-quality nickel and an important producer of copper and responsibly sourced cobalt. With headquarters in Toronto, Canada, and operations in Newfoundland & Labrador, Ontario, Manitoba, Indonesia and Brazil, the business delivers critical building blocks for a cleaner, greener future.

MIRARCO Mining Innovation is in its 25th year and has been a leader in the development of innovative solutions in response to the needs of the mining industry. Located in Sudbury, Ontario, MIRARCO works collaboratively with industry, private sector, government, academia, and community stakeholders, building fit for purpose teams to effectively deploy knowledge, technology, and sustainable practices across the mining life cycle.

Canada Nickel progresses carbon capture and storage test work for Crawford

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Canada Nickel Company Inc says the latest test work on material from its Crawford project, in Ontario, Canada, supports the incorporation of carbon capture and storage into the develoment.

The company has devised an In-Process Tailings (IPT) Carbonation process, which, it says, is a novel method for accelerated carbon capture and storage that it believes has transformative potential.

The latest test work conducted at Kingston Process Metallurgy (KPM) confirmed that existing process streams can be used for IPT Carbonation, which the company believes should allow it to be timely and cost effectively engineered and incorporated into the project flowsheet.

Crawford is hosted in ultramafic rock, which naturally absorbs and sequesters CO2, according to the company, with the potential to actively capture and sequester carbon being a key consideration in Canada Nickel’s acquisition of the 42 sq.km of target ultramafic rocks in the Timmins area.

Canada Nickel has developed an active process that uses tailings as generated in the milling process and injects a concentrated source of CO2 for a brief period of time. This process, IPT Carbonation, fixes CO2 geologically while the tailings are still in the processing circuit, rather than after they have been finally deposited.

The company believes that, given its relative simplicity, this process could be scaled up with availability of concentrated (rather than atmospheric) sources of CO2, with the CO2 potentially delivered by downstream processing of Crawford concentrates, a wide range of industrial processing activities, green hydrogen production, or carbon capture facilities.

Canada Nickel said: “The process demonstrates the potential to produce NetZero Nickel™ and NetZero Cobalt™ for the electric vehicle industry, NetZero Iron™ and chromium for the stainless steel industry and generate substantial carbon credits during the process. The company believes that the need for a concentrated source of CO2 for this process and the substantial CO2 capture and storage capacity potential of its ultramafic land position could form the basis for an entire Zero Carbon Industrial Cluster in the Timmins-Cochrane region.”

The latest results from further lab-scale testing at KPM confirmed that a blend of tailings expected to be produced by Crawford and thickened to an expected operating tailings density could be successfully carbonated with the IPT Carbonation process, the company said. This is a significant result to demonstrate the process at higher solids densities as the pulp density and the tailings residence time will be a key driver of the process capital and operating costs, it explained.

The testing also attempted to understand what ultimate carbon capture potential is possible and the test resulted in 37 t of CO2 captured per tonne of nickel – 34 t of that amount was captured within 25 hours. The 37 t figure is believed to represent a potential maximum and there is no certainty that such amount could be achieved in commercial operation, the company said.

As a result of these results, the integrated feasibility study for the project is expected to be delivered in the June quarter of 2023. This delay, the company says, has no impact on the overall timeline to production, with Canada Nickel continuing to target receipt of permits by mid-2025 with construction to follow.

Mark Selby, Chair and CEO of Canada Nickel, said: “We believe the Crawford project has the potential to be a case study in how critical minerals are developed in Ontario and Canada. Crawford is poised to support the energy transition through the large-scale production of critical minerals, including nickel and cobalt, and to become the sole North American producer of chromium, while also supporting the country’s climate objectives through large-scale carbon capture and storage.”

The company believes the successful incorporation of IPT Carbonation could also potentially allow a portion of its project capital expenditures to become eligible for the carbon capture and storage refundable investment tax credits of 37.5% to 60% from 2022-30 and 18.75% to 30% from 2031-40 announced in the 2022 federal budget documents in Canada.

Selby added: “We look forward to continuing our positive momentum in 2023 as we complete this integrated feasibility study for Crawford, continue to successfully advance the Crawford permitting process, work with our recently appointed financial advisors to advance its overall financing package and aggressively advance our recently acquired Texmont property with its potential for near-term production. We are also excited by our successful tests of the regional exploration potential at Reid, Deloro, Sothman and Reaume which, as they are hosted in the same mineralisation as Crawford, offer the same potential for integrated carbon capture and storage – setting the stage for a Zero Carbon Industrial Cluster in the Timmins-Cochrane region.”

JP Morgan-backed financing paves way for further MineSense growth

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MineSense Technologies Ltd says it has closed a $42 million Series E financing led by J.P. Morgan Asset Management’s Sustainable Growth Equity team that, it says, will allow it to accelerate the commercial deployment of its solutions to drive further growth and profitability.

The funding round includes participation from new investor Evok Innovations, a climate technology and sustainability venture fund, and existing investors including Prelude Ventures, BDC Industrial Innovation Venture Fund, Cycle Capital and Chrysalix Venture Capital.

MineSense has been pioneering data-driven solutions that improve ore grade control, operational profitability and carbon intensity across the metals mining industry. It is doing this through a combination of its ShovelSense® and BeltSense® hardware, a digital platform and geoscientific insight that goes beyond purely grade-based orebody information.

ShovelSense provides precise ore/waste definition and unlocks unique, previously inaccessible data sets at the mine’s extraction face, according to the company. This real-time data enables removal of waste from ore and recovers valuable ore from waste by making smart routing decisions that also reduces the amount of waste processed, production of tailings, and energy, water, and reagent consumption. Metal recovery is increased materially, with production from operating mines increasing by 5-25% on existing infrastructure, according to the company.

The company has initially been focused on copper, with those mining companies that have signed up to use its solutions looking to maximise ore recovery, minimise dilution and enhance operational sustainability.

MineSense says it has tripled revenue over the last year, and was recently recognised as one of the fastest growing companies in North America by Deloitte.

It currently currently serves mines across North and South America, with notable deployments in British Columbia (Teck’s Highland Valley Copper, Copper Mountain Mining’s operation and Taseko Mines’ Gibraltar operation), Chile (Carmen de Andacollo) and Peru (Antamina).

The fundraising will allow the company to expand its coverage globally and extend into other critical metals such as nickel, cobalt, zinc and iron, it said.

Jeff More, CEO of MineSense, said: “We are pleased to partner with J.P. Morgan Sustainable Growth Equity and Evok to scale our ore grade data mining solutions. This funding and strategic support will allow us to continue executing on our strategy of delivering profit enhancement, operational efficiency, and carbon intensity reduction to critical mining operations.”

Draslovka about to move into glycine leaching mining demonstration phase

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Czech Republic-based Draslovka Holding is heading into a busy 12-month period where its glycine leaching technology will be showcased at numerous mining projects across the globe, the company told IM on the side lines of the Resourcing Tomorrow conference, in London, this week.

According to Ivor Bryan, Director of Mining Innovation at Draslovka Mining Solutions and the former MD of Mining & Process Solutions (MPS), the entity responsible for the development of the GlyCat™ and GlyLeach™ technologies, the company is embarking on around 10 projects in the mining space, which will prove up the 3,500 hours of testing that has been conducted at MPS’ facilities in Perth, Western Australia.

MPS was acquired by Draslovka, a major sodium cyanide producer in 2022, with the aim of the transaction being to grow and develop the glycine leaching business.

Gold leach testing via GlyCat has been the major area of focus over the last decade. The process was invented to reduce cyanide consumption while maintaining gold recovery for gold ores from deposits containing nuisance copper. It has been designed to enhance the dissolution of gold and copper in gold/copper ores where glycine is used as a catalyst with cyanide in a cyanide-starved leaching environment. It doesn’t replace cyanide, but, in fact, enhances its leaching capabilities by dealing with the high-cyanide consuming copper within these gold-copper orebodies.

Yet, the company is also now starting to make inroads into the base metal space through GlyLeach, with nickel and cobalt two specific areas of interest. The technology is able to leach the targeted metals with enhanced selectivity compared with conventional methods. It will solubilise copper, nickel, cobalt and zinc, while gangue minerals such as iron, manganese, silicates and carbonates remain in the leach residue, Draslovka says.

This is allowing the company to promote that it can reduce the capital expenditure associated with processing these metals by removing the need for smelting, or in the case of tailings deposits, helping recover metal from assets previously written off as ‘waste’.

While the technology could have applications at run of mine operations, Bryan and his colleague Jackson Briggs, Corporate Development Manager of Draslovka, believe the most immediate opportunity is in tailings where the application of glycine leaching on ‘waste’ material could recover valuable metals while reducing the potential liabilities associated with such storage facilities.

Of the 10 or so projects the company has ahead of it, one is situated in Western Australia where the company is looking to recover nickel and cobalt metals from a tailings deposit of a major mining company.

Another project – much closer to fruition – is in Chile and involves leaching a carbonate-hosted copper oxide deposit containing some 600 t of material.

In both cases, the company is looking to demonstrate that it can recover valuable metals at high recovery rates, with low impact – namely rationalising reagent and water use and, in the case of nickel-cobalt, removing smelting from the equation.

This, according to Draslovka CEO, Pavel Bruzek, is a “win-win” for mining companies and their stakeholders, benefitting both the balance sheet and the operational environmental footprint.

“While we are a major sodium cyanide producer, when we saw the potential of MPS’ glycine leaching technology and the increase in metallurgical complexity of orebodies looking to be exploited, it made perfect sense to work with and promote this technology,” he told IM. “It is the responsible thing to do for the industry.”

Sandvik to deliver load and haul equipment to JCHX Mining in DRC

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Sandvik has received a large mining equipment order from the China-based global mining services provider JCHX Mining Management Co., Ltd to be used in the Kamoa-Kakula copper mine and the Kamoya copper and cobalt mine in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The order is valued at SEK 210 million ($20.1 million) and will be booked in the December quarter of 2022.

The order is for a fleet of load and haul equipment, including eight Sandvik TH545i trucks, five Sandvik TH663i trucks, three Sandvik LH621i loaders, two Sandvik LH514E cable-electric loaders and one Sandvik LH514 loader.

The equipment will primarily be delivered during 2023, but with the first delivery expected by the end of the year.

Mats Eriksson, President of Sandvik Mining and Rock Solutions, said: “I am pleased to see the continued demand for our highly productive offering of intelligent mining equipment. Our highest-capacity intelligent load and haul equipment has been in operation at Kamoa since 2019, and this order is a testament to the strength and quality of the solutions we provide.”

Wallis Drilling wins three-year contract extension at Glencore’s Murrin Murrin op

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Glencore has signed a three-year contract extension with Wallis Drilling to retain the drilling company’s services at Murrin Murrin in Western Australia’s Goldfields region, which will extend Wallis’ long-standing relationship at the Glencore-owned operation to over a quarter of a century, the service provider says.

Wallis Drilling is a local Western Australian business, founded in 1965 by Marty and Jamie Wallis, which has grown to over 300 employees, but remains a family run business today.

Wallis has provided services to Glencore’s Murrin Murrin operation for 24 years and the contract extension, running through to September 2025, will see Wallis Drilling continue to provide RC grade control and blasthole drilling at Murrin Murrin.

Murrin Murrin is a nickel-cobalt mining and processing operation between Leonora and Laverton in the north-eastern Goldfields region of Western Australia and currently provides work for over 1,000 employees and contractors.

Wallis Drilling Manager, Wayne Waters, oversees the Murrin Murrin contract, with his role previously being occupied by Grant Wallis who is now the Chief Operating Officer of the business.

Waters said: “Murrin Murrin, like Wallis, understands the importance of establishing and nurturing long-term relationships to create stability, which has been exemplified by the latest contract extension.

“This business certainty is beneficial to Wallis, but it also gives us the capacity to plan for the long-term on site at Murrin Murrin and deliver the best operational outcomes.”

Grant Wallis said: “Our work at Murrin Murrin has helped us grow from a small family business to one of Australia’s largest privately-owned minerals drilling companies, while still remaining true to our local WA roots.”

Nic Fenner, Head of Mining Technical Services at Murrin Murrin, said: “We are very proud to help grow local Western Australia businesses, like Wallis Drilling, and help be a part in their success stories.

“The strong relationship between Murrin Murrin Operations and Wallis has been underpinned by our shared values and culture. Murrin Murrin and Wallis both have many long serving employees with some even being the second generation in their family to work at Murrin Murrin.”

Clariant opens new competence centre in Dubai focused on decarbonisation minerals

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Clariant Mining Solutions has opened a dedicated global Competence Center for Decarbonization Minerals (CCDM) at the Dubai Science Park in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE).

This laboratory is designed to meet the increasing global demand for solutions to process decarbonisation minerals more efficiently, it said.

The decarbonisation of the production and transportation of goods and services is a growing megatrend. Mining is one of the key foundational industries enabling decarbonisation by delivering the minerals required for these technologies, such as nickel, cobalt and lithium for batteries for electric vehicles, rare earths for magnets in wind turbines and alumina for lighter-weight vehicles and solar panels.

Research activities will include improving metallurgical performance by maximising recovery and grade, optimising cost performance, and creating more sustainable solutions for the processing of decarbonisation minerals, it said.

“Our new Competence Center is another important milestone in our purpose-led strategy to become a sustainability leader in mining chemicals,” George Nunes, Global Head of Clariant Mining Solutions, said.

Wood gets second bite at Vermelho nickel-cobalt project development

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Horizonte Minerals Plc has awarded Wood Plc the principal engineering contract to undertake the feasibility study for its 100%-owned Vermelho nickel-cobalt project, in Brazil.

Vermelho is a large high-grade, long mine life, scalable resource, designed to be a low-cost producer of nickel and cobalt for the battery industry, Horizonte says. The Vermelho FS contract award is another key milestone for Horizonte as it advances towards its long-term objective of becoming a 60,000 t/y nickel producer, following the start of construction at Araguaia, its ferronickel project, early this year, which is on schedule to produce first nickel in the March quarter of 2024.

Vermelho is designed to produce 25,000 t/y of nickel and 1,250 t/y of cobalt over a 38-year mine life. The prefeasibility study (dated October 2019) estimated a post-tax internal rate of return of 38.6% using a nickel price of $23,000/t.

Wood, Horizonte says, is a global leader in project delivery, engineering and technical services with experience across a number of the major high pressure leach nickel operations globally.

Jeremy Martin, CEO of Horizonte Minerals, said: “The commencement of the feasibility study is an important step forward in unlocking Vermelho’s significant value. There are very few nickel resources of this scale and quality at an advanced stage of development, leaving Vermelho well positioned to capitalise on the growing demand for sustainable critical metals.

“Vermelho is located in the Carajás mining district, an area that features well-developed infrastructure and hydroelectric power. The project is designed to produce nickel in intermediate or refined form and will be a globally significant, non-conflict, ethical source of cobalt.

“Araguaia and Vermelho have a combined inventory of over 4 Mt of nickel. By leveraging the synergies of these two world-class projects, located within trucking distance of each other in a stable and pro mining jurisdiction, Horizonte is well positioned to deliver its growth target of producing 60,000 t of nickel per year, placing the company amongst the global leaders in primary nickel production outside Indonesia.”

Wood (formerly GRD Minproc) undertook a successful Vermelho feasibility study for Vale between 2003 and 2006. In this regard, it already has a detailed understanding of the project, enabling it to leverage this existing knowledge during the process of producing this updated study for Horizonte, the company said.