EXCLUSIVE: Canada's Mega Nickel Project With 3.8 Million Metric Tons Set To Challenge Global Giants (CORRECTED)

Editor’s Note: This article has been corrected to note that Canada Nickel’s Crawford property ranks second in the world, behind one in Russia and ahead of three in Indonesia.

WASHINGTON — A nickel mining district in southeastern Canada may one day rival Indonesia as the world's largest producer of the battery metal, Canada Nickel Co.'s CNIKF CEO Mark Selby said this month at a mining conference.

The company's Crawford project near Timmins, a mining town in eastern Ontario, is its flagship property, but it is actively exploring seven other resource targets in the area with a drilling program to last into the third quarter 2024.

"Within a year from now, we'll have seven different resources published," Selby told Benzinga on the sidelines of a Benchmark Mineral Intelligence battery metals conference last week.

Also Read: Why Indonesia’s EV Ambitions Mean It Will Burn More Coal

Canada Nickel’s Crawford property contains 3.8 million metric tons of proven and probable nickel reserves, ranking it second among the biggest nickel mines in the world, behind one in Russia but ahead of three in Indonesia.

The catch is that the other mines are already in production, while Canada Nickel says Crawford won't be in production until the tail end of 2027.

Remaining hurdles include getting permits from the federal and provincial governments, but Selby said the company is expecting to have all of those by this time next year. Canada Nickel is backed by investments from Agnico Eagle Mines AEM, Samsung SDI SSDIY and Anglo American NGLOY.

If Canada Nickel can pull it off, having such a large nickel mine in North America would go a long way toward fulfilling Western government ambitions to build a battery supply chain that isn't dependent on China, which dominates nickel mining and refining through its investments in Indonesia, the world's biggest nickel producer.

Nickel, which is used to make stainless steel, is also a key ingredient in batteries that run electric vehicles.

In 2023, Canada produced 132.4 thousand metric tons of the metal, well behind Indonesia's 1.7 million, according to GlobalData and U.S. Geological Survey data. And while Crawford is bigger than those three individual mines in Indonesia, those mines combined dwarf its reserves, with 7.7 million metric tons of nickel.

That means the Timmins area has a long way to go before it competes with Indonesia on size, but Canada Nickel isn't the only company exploring for the battery metal in the area.

Traditionally a gold mining hub, the Timmins area now boasts a slew of nickel miners, including EV Nickel Inc. EVNIF, Class 1 Nickel and Technologies NICLF, Voltage Metals Corp. VLTMF, Xander Resources XNDRF, Canada One Mining Corp. COMCF, RT Minerals Corp. RTMFD, Noble Mineral Exploration NLPXF and Pelangio Exploration PGXPF.

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