Mark Selby presents the big picture for a stainless steel industry in Timmins

Since arriving in Timmins a year and a half ago, Mark Selby has been trying to put the world-famous Gold District on the map as an emerging global nickel camp.

Twenty months later Nickel Canada Company Drilled its first drill hole in its Crawford nickel sulfide project, the CEO and president of the Toronto-based junior mining company sits on a resource capable of delivering 1.9 billion pounds of nickel over a lifetime of 25 years.

Canada Nickel this week released a Preliminary Economic Assessment (PEA) on its flagship Crawford nickel sulphide project, 40 kilometers north of Timmins.

Selby insists their nickel, iron and chromium resources can only grow as the proposed surface mine project enters a “pivotal year” in the company’s short history.

“This is really just the start,” Selby said in a web call this week to analysts and investors about PEA and their budding plans for a neutral surface mine and mill. in carbon on a large scale.

The PEA was based on a resource that Canada Nickel targeted last October. By the time a new resource estimate at Crawford is released early next year, Selby expects it to be “50-100% larger” than what they currently know in the ground. It will be part of a final feasibility study for a potential open-pit mine, scheduled for mid-2022.

Canada Nickel is on the exploration and development fast lane as Selby seeks to position Crawford for a planned nickel super cycle.

He sees Crawford as a decades-long base metal mining operation with enormous potential as they continue to drill around their current deposit and conduct extension drilling on a number of promising targets on their massive land base. 72,000 hectares.

As global comparisons, Selby said Crawford’s current resource base would rank it as the largest base metals operation in Canada, one that would certainly attract a global mining player. It is said to be one of the five largest nickel sulphide producers in the world – ahead of Voisey’s Bay and Raglan and just behind the Vale mining complex in Sudbury – and the largest nickel sulphide operation outside of Russia.

In addition to updating on how things are going at Crawford, Selby spoke about opportunities to create downstream value-added manufacturing capacity on the property.

Almost from the start, Selby promoted Canada Nickel as a supplier of battery metals to the electric vehicle industry. Today, the discovery of chrome on the property increasingly places them on a dual track to a market that includes stainless steel.

“We have the ore which contains nickel, iron and chromium,†said Selby, “the essentials you need to make stainless steelâ€.

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In addition to the high grade and standard grade nickel concentrate they expect to produce at Crawford, a third product in the mix will be a magnetite concentrate containing 45 to 50 percent iron and with an average of 3 percent iron. chromium, which is used to produce stainless steel and nickel pig iron.

With a PEA in hand and a defined resource base, Selby believes he can attract a manufacturing partner to Timmins who can convert these materials into low risk products like 304 stainless steel (a low carbon steel) and cast iron. nickel crude with an integrated factory operation it envisions at the Crawford site.

Selby said there are “dozens, if not hundreds” of downstream processing agreements between mining and processing companies in China and elsewhere in the world that can achieve this with standard technologies.

A great incentive to attract a stainless steel partner to relocate to Timmins is the carbon credit component associated with the Crawford Project. The tailings and waste rock that they would store on site have the capacity to absorb carbon dioxide.

Studies have shown that the predominant serpentine host rock in the region naturally absorbs CO2 when exposed to air. Any emissions from mining would be offset by tailings.

When they complete the feasibility study next year, Selby said they will have a better idea of ​​what the carbon capture values ​​will be, what the potential flow of carbon credits will look like and how they can. monetize that. The residues will also not generate acid since they will not have any sulfur left. The sulfur will be in the concentrate that they will sell to customers.

The many clean hydroelectric power connections in the Timmins area allow them to choose electric shovels, forklifts and haul trucks to move the ore, rather than a diesel-powered fleet. A local First Nation, the Taykwa Tagamou Nation, helps them finance both electricity and vehicles.

But Selby has made it clear that delivering nickel units to the EV battery market still remains high on their plans. Now that the PEA is out, he expects automakers in the battery supply chain to show up at Crawford and the talks will only intensify.

On the “green†marketing side, Canada Nickel has consistently sold Crawford’s carbon neutral history of mining, milling and manufacturing, even going so far as to market the net zero nickel, iron and steel products. cobalt that they expect to market.

Selby maintains that there is a new generation of investors who want exposure to “green metals” and “green industries”, and believes that in the future a premium will be given to “zero carbon” products.

They also made specific changes to the board of directors of Canada Nickel last year by hiring individuals with experience in private equity and the green transition economy as they seek to leverage these relationships. .

Canada Nickel received positive press over the winter, with Selby being quoted in a Reuters article last February about his discussions with U.S. government officials regarding the supply of nickel to that country for batteries. of electric vehicles. He is also encouraged by President Joe Biden’s more recent comments on his willingness to seek out and secure critical mineral supply sources outside the United States.

During the online call, Selby mentioned that, four months after Canada Nickel was formed in February 2020, the company was approached by trade officials at the US Consulate in Toronto with a particular interest in strategic minerals.

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Now that they have a PEA in place to talk about Crawford in more concrete terms, he expects these conversations to accelerate and he will look to be introduced to other players in the supply chain industry. batteries in the United States.

“It’s very real and will be part of the discussion process going forward.”

In national government support for Crawford, Selby said the province has already implemented a “very clearly defined mine-to-auto plant strategy” by issuing big checks to auto plants in southern Ontario. switching to the production of electric vehicles.

Given the magnitude of the benefits Crawford is expected to generate for the economy over the next 25 years, Selby said the Crawford project remains on the government’s radar and expects to receive support from Ottawa and Queen’s. Park.

On the exploration front, Selby said they continue to drill in and around their main deposit, filling gaps on some known extensions and drilling extension drilling on promising targets on their vast landholding in the area. hope to find high-grade zones that can serve as satellite deposits in the years to come.

“We fundamentally believe that with all the land we have and the potential we see today, Crawford could be one of the greatest nickel sulphide resources in the world. “