Mark Selby, CEO of Canada Nickel, in Toronto in 2023. Ontario is fast-tracking the company’s Crawford Nickel Project, located north of Timmins, Ont.Duane Cole /The Globe and Mail
Ontario is fast-tracking Canada Nickel Co.’s CNC-X Crawford operation under its “One Project, One Process” regulatory initiative, a move politicians say is meant to protect against threats to Canada’s economic sovereignty, even as significant funding hurdles remain for the junior mining company.
Crawford, located about 40 kilometres north of Timmins in Northeastern Ontario, contains the world’s second-largest nickel reserve.
The Toronto-based company hopes to start construction before year-end, and is aiming to be in production at the end of 2028. Canada Nickel also plans to build a nickel-processing plant in Timmins.
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Provincial politicians at a Tuesday press conference in Timmins said that designating Crawford for regulatory streamlining is part of an effort to reduce global dependence on Indonesian-sourced metal. They also pointed to the importance of nickel, used in electric batteries and steelmaking, to Canada’s economic sovereignty, particularly in the face of uncertainty over U.S. President Donald Trump’s aggressive foreign ambitions.
Just over a week ago, the U.S. captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and asserted control over the country and its vast oil reserves. Mr. Trump has since made threatening comments toward Colombia, Cuba, Mexico and Greenland. Mr. Trump has also previously said he wants to annex Canada as the 51st state, which some believe reflects his desire to bulk up the resource capabilities of the U.S.
“We’ve just recently seen what Trump did in Venezuela, [targeting] the oil,” said George Pirie, Ontario Minister of Northern Economic Development and Growth, at the Timmins event.
“But he’s not going to be able to take our nickel out of the ground. Not a bloody chance. Not a bloody chance. We’ve got it right here. We’re going to process it here, and we’re going to develop value-added industries here in the north.”
Under Ontario’s new fast-tracking process, which was announced last October, Canada Nickel will only have to deal with one representative at the provincial level, who will oversee all of its permits, instead of several different internal provincial agencies.
While the special designation may not speed up the construction timeline significantly, it should make navigating the process much smoother and it will reduce the likelihood of something falling through the cracks, Canada Nickel chief executive Mark Selby said in an interview.
“This basically will ensure that things don’t get off track,” he said.
As much as the reduction in red tape will help the junior mining company, it will still need to navigate massive funding needs.
Crawford is estimated to cost between US$2-billion and US$2.5-billion to build, but most of the financing that the company has in place is provisional.
Among the tentative funding is US$500-million in debt from Export Development Canada, $500-million from another unnamed Canadian government financing agency, and about US$600-million in tax credits in critical minerals, and carbon capture and storage.
But even if all of that comes to fruition, there are still hundreds of millions of dollars needed in additional funding. Roughly $300-million in additional equity funding is required. The company is also considering the sale of 10 to 20 per cent of the project to a third-party investor, which could net up to about US$200-million. Samsung SDI of South Korea already has an option to purchase 10 per cent of Crawford for US$100-million.
“There’s a lot of work between now and year-end,” Mr. Selby said of the funding that needs to be firmed up.
Some of that could be obtained with the help of Ottawa’s Major Projects Office, he added. Last year, Crawford was one of a handful of mining projects of national importance named in the federal program, which like Ontario’s fast-tracking program, is meant to reduce red-tape burden.
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Nickel from the Crawford mine will be sold to the electric car industry and the steel sector, with customers in the U.S and Europe.
Mr. Selby says he isn’t losing much sleep over Mr. Trump’s global trade war, and anticipates there will be plenty of demand in Europe, which places a premium on metal mined using sound environmental standards.
Indonesia, which controls about two-thirds of the global nickel market, has a more deleterious impact on the environment, owing to deforestation and the use of coal in its processing.
Canada in 2024 produced 190,000 tonnes of nickel, compared to only 8,000 tonnes in the U.S., according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Indonesia produced 2.2 million tonnes.
The U.S. has only one primary nickel mine in operation, Eagle in Michigan, while Canada has vast operations in Sudbury, Labrador and in Northern Quebec.
Crawford is the second operation to be named in Ontario’s One Project, One Process framework. Frontier Lithium Inc.’s FL-X PAK lithium project in Northwest Ontario was the first to receive the designation in October.