Canada Nickel Company says piloting work on its In-Process Tailings (IPT) Carbonation carbon storage process is demonstrating the commercialisation potential of the process in Ontario’s Timmins nickel district.
CEO Mark Selby said pilot plant testwork on material from CNC’s Crawford nickel-cobalt project and third-party material, coupled with results of a study by “a leading strategy house”, showed the “significant value potential of the company’s IPT Carbonation process”.
“The potential demand for more than 20 million tonnes annually of CO2 storage is well in excess of the 1Mt capacity for Crawford, which supports our company’s belief that our Timmins nickel district can anchor a zero-carbon industrial cluster in the Timmins-Cochrane region,” Selby said.
“The work also supports our belief that the Crawford project can qualify a portion of its capital expenditures to take advantage of the Carbon Capture and Storage refundable tax credits announced by the federal government in its 2022 budget.
“We look forward to the release of our feasibility study on October 12th, which we expect to support our belief that Crawford is poised to be a leader in the energy transition through the large-scale production of critical minerals, including nickel and cobalt.”
The IBT process involves injecting a concentrated source of CO2 into tailings to capture CO2 geologically in the tailings while they are still in the processing circuit, rather than after they have been deposited. CNC’s Crawford deposit is hosted in ultramafic rock, which it says naturally absorbs and sequesters CO2.
Selby said the consulting study confirmed CNC could “reasonably expect in excess of C$25 per tonne of CO2 in storage fees” from deployment of IPT carbonation based on public and “communicated carbon prices and policy status”.
The study is said to have drawn on data from a population of about 150 potential emitters, including circa-50 emitters in four distinct clusters in Sudbury, Sault Ste Marie, Toronto and Sarnia.