Read the transcript of Mark Selby's interview on BNN earlier today.
Andrew Bell: There's a dirty secret in the electric cars -- a lot of them use cobalt, where much of the world supply emerges in murky circumstances from the Democratic Republic of Congo. Nickel, as well. In some parts of the world, nickel creates environmental pollution. Our guest says that he has a plan to fix at least some of those problems, and produce nickel and cobalt in Canada in an environmentally friendly way. We're joined by Mark Selby. Mark, we haven't talked to you for a while since you headed up RNC Minerals. Tell us about your new outfit and what you're planning to do.
Mark Selby: Sure, Andrew. Great to see you again. Canada Nickel is a brand new company, it's founded on a new discovery -- a nickel-cobalt discovery just outside of Timmins. We started drilling the deposit in September and by the end of February, we'd already developed the 12th largest nickel-cobalt resource in the world. We've drilled less than 20% of what's there. Our big announcement today is that we're going to use existing technology to be able to take the mining, milling, and processing of nickel and do it in a way that is zero-carbon. We are going to give the market the zero-carbon nickel and cobalt products that we've heard about from Elon Musk. Last week he said that he's in quite a hurry to get his hands on more of this stuff.
Andrew Bell: How would this stuff be zero-carbon, Mark?
Mark Selby: We're quite fortunate to sit at a unique intersection of three things that make this possible. One is the rocks. The rock that makes up 90% of our deposit is a rock called serpentinite and it naturally absorbs CO2. When it is exposed to air, it becomes another mineral. That's number one. For number two, we're in a region where all of the electricity runs off a hydroelectric base, which is all zero-carbon. We're fortunate for that previous investment by Ontario in this power grid. Lower-grade deposits like ours require the mine to process a lot of material and having zero-carbon electricity to make that happen is a huge advantage. The third thing is the Timmins region has a real history of downstream minerals processing -- being able to locate a downstream processing plant in the same vicinity as the mine allows us to capture the off-gas and pump it back into the tailings or waste rock that would come out of a project like ours, and then use the natural property of those rocks to absorb the CO2 to be able to come out with what we think will be a truly zero-carbon product.
Andrew Bell: You're estimating that this whole thing, the mine and the processing facility, would cost $1 billion dollars?
Mark Selby: Well, the mine and the mill would be roughly a billion dollars. This project is very similar to Dumont, which was the focus of my past life at RNC Minerals. We would have an overall price tag in that range. We incorporated a separate subsidiary called NetZero metals. I've been discussing this for a number of years with a lot of major players in the EV supply chain that a number of them are very keen to put processing plants next to the deposits. They realize that's the lowest cost way to deliver the battery material for the auto industry, but they don't necessarily want exposure to mining. By setting up this separate "NetZero Metal" subsidiary, it'll make it much easier and simpler to bring in partners who are able to provide the capital and some of the expertise required to process the material and get it into the battery chain for as low a cost as possible.
Andrew Bell: Oh, I see. So, the billion dollars would cover the mine and the mill. Then for the actual cobalt processing and nickel processing, you'd be looking to third parties to do that?
Mark Selby: Yes. We will work together with them so we have one processing plant to do the nickel-cobalt and then a separate process for iron ore. We have a magnetite ore body, so we'd also look to make zero-carbon iron as well. The big challenge the industry faces, and this is what Elon was tweeting about last week, is that the bulk of the growth in the nickel market has come from Indonesia, where they make Nickel Pig Iron using 25-30 tonnes of coal. That generates 90 tonnes of CO2 per tonne of nickel. The other approach they're looking at is using pressure-acid leach and some of those projects are going to dump 100 tonnes of tailings into the ocean for every ton of nickel that they make. The ability to come up with a zero-carbon product is what resource companies should be focused on, in my opinion.
Andrew Bell: Now, just down the road in Sudbury they have sulphide ore, which is relatively low emission. How would you compete with vast operations like Sudbury, for example, when it comes to producing nickel?
Mark Selby: The resource base that we have today is going to be comparable in scale to what exists today in Sudbury. Then, in terms of the mining, mill, and processing -- based on what we saw at Dumont, we should be able to provide a pretty high-grade concentrate, which would allow us to get away with a smaller scale processing plant. The issue with Sudbury, historically, and nickel processing is sulfur dioxide emissions -- that's something they've reduced greatly over time in Sudbury, but they still produce a significant amount of SO2. What we're really aiming for is to produce zero-CO2 and zero-SO2, or as little as possible in the processing of this product. It's because of the unique nature of this deposit and the type of concentrate we can do produce that we can do it without having to build the same kind of massive complex that you see in Sudbury.
Andrew Bell: Timmins -- we think of Timmins as a gold camp, but there is significant nickel there?
Mark Selby: Yes, this is a brand new discovery. The other point I think Elon was making in recently is that there are very few new projects outside of Indonesia. This is a new discovery in 2018. There were some smaller scale discoveries in the region that had been made during prior nickel booms, but what we're looking at now is Dumont-type mineralization that we've found just north of Timmins. It's already one of the 12 largest in the world and that's on less than 20% of just one structure. We have optioned another five structures in the area that we think have similar potential. We think we're going to create a brand new nickel district, which will be well-timed to deliver the kind of nickel-cobalt the market is desperately looking for.
Andrew Bell: What was the timing there, Mark? When were you hoping to get up and running with this thing?
Mark Selby: We're targeting production in the mid-2020s. We made the discovery just over a year ago and we'll have our first PEA done by the end of this year, with a feasibility study done by the end of 2021. We'll push permitting as quickly as possible and then we want to hit that window when nickel demand from the electric vehicle sector is really going to ramp-up.
Andrew Bell: Mark, just remind us how old you are? You represent a new generation of mining executives. Do you think you and your younger colleagues are more environmentally conscious?
Mark Selby: I think that's definitely the case. I think the industry has to realize that people look today with the same horror on CO2 emissions as when we look back 40 years ago at an industry that used to think it was okay to just dump waste, gas, liquids, or solids wherever they wish. We need to find solutions now, not in decades. There are a bunch of larger mining companies that are talking about "2050" type solutions and the reality is that the market wants solutions this decade, not in some nebulous time-frame 20 years from now. Recognize that there is a new generation of consumers here who are demanding these types of products.
Andrew Bell: What age are you, Mark? Please tell us that?
Mark Selby: I'm 54.
Andrew Bell: My goodness. Interesting. As you say, 2050 is all very well, but the world will have done a lot of warming by then. I think we'll have to leave it there, Mark. Always great talking to you.
Mark Selby: Thanks very much, indeed. Great talking to you and, hopefully, we'll be talking again with some more news later on.
Andrew Bell: Excellent. Mark Selby of Canada Nickel.
Learn more about Canada Nickel and their wholly-owned subsidiary, NetZero Metals, to begin the research and development of a processing facility that would be located in the Timmins, Ontario region with the goal of utilizing existing technologies to produce zero-carbon nickel, cobalt and iron products. https://ceo.ca/@newswire/canada-nickel-launches-wholly-owned-netzero-metals-a7fb3
