Lifezone start offtake tendering for Kabanga nickel project
Lifezone Metals, a company backed by Australian multinational BHP, has started the process of marketing its future products from the Kabanga nickel project in Tanzania.
The company is in talks with electric vehicle (EV) companies to supply nickel, cobalt, and copper from the Kabanga mine, which is currently undergoing feasibility assessments. Lifezone CEO Chris Showalter stated that this is a significant milestone in the company’s development, as there is an expected shift towards cleaner sources of raw materials for the battery and EV supply chain.
The Kabanga mine has a measured nickel equivalent reserve of 25.8 million tonnes, with an additional 14.6 million tonnes inferred. Although Lifezone did not disclose the names of the EV companies it is negotiating with, no deals have been finalized yet.
Hydromet technology
BHP, which has already invested $40 million for an 8.9% stake in the Kabanga project in January 2022, recently completed a second tranche of investment worth $50 million, bringing its stake to 17%. BHP also holds an option to increase its stake further to 51%. The company believes that the Kabanga mine is a valuable asset in the clean energy transition. Metals extracted from the Kabanga mine will be processed at the prospective Kahama refinery in Tanzania and then transported to Dar es Salaam, the country’s largest city and the headquarters of Lifezone, for export.
Lifezone considers its hydromet technology to be a game-changing innovation in the nickel industry. This technology, which is an alternative to smelting, uses a hydrometallurgical process to extract critical minerals from the mine’s liquid sludge, purify the recovered concentrate, and then recover the metals through methods such as electrolysis. Notably, this process reduces CO₂ emissions as it doesn’t require heat or pressure.
In the near future, Lifezone intends to become a public company through a merger with GoGreen. The CEO of GoGreen, John Dowd, cited the potential of Lifezone’s hydromet technology and the upside provided by the Kabanga asset as key reasons for the merger.
