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Canada Nickel Company Inc. (CNC-X) has attracted Korean electric car battery maker Samsung SDI Co., Ltd. as a strategic investor, raising US$18.8 million to develop its Ontario nickel project.
The Toronto-based junior nickel development company is run by Mark Selby, a one-time executive with Inco. Ltd., which was formerly one of Canada’s biggest nickel companies.
(Inco was acquired by Brazil’s Vale SA in the mid-2000s).
Samsung’s investment into Canada Nickel is part of a trend of battery metals end users taking stakes in mining companies to secure supply for raw materials.
Vancouver-based lithium producer Lithium Americas Corp. (LAC-T) last year landed a US$650-million financing with General Motors Co. to help it develop a major new lithium mine in the United States.
Canada Nickel hopes that its Crawford nickel project in Ontario’s Timmins-Cochrane mining camp will eventually supply the metal to the electric car battery market. Nickel alongside copper, cobalt and lithium, is an ingredient in EV batteries.
Unlike the high-profile Eagle’s Nest nickel project in the remote Ring of Fire in Ontario’s far north, the Crawford project is located near vital infrastructure such as roads and the hydro grid.
Eagle’s Nest, however, is a much higher-grade deposit. Crawford’s reserve grade is around 0.22 per cent nickel per ton. The company is hoping to have permits in place to build the mine by next year and is targeting production by the end of 2027. The company’s return on investment is projected to be 17 per cent.
Samsung will own about 8.7 per cent of Canada Nickel once the deal closes. It is acquiring stock at $1.57 a share, a penny below the level the shares closed at on Thursday on the TSX Venture Exchange.
Samsung’s investment in Canada Nickel comes only a few weeks after Canadian gold miner Agnico Eagle Mines Ltd. (AEM-T) took a 12-per-cent stake in the company.
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