The Elements of Innovation Discovered
The Elements of Innovation Discovered
Metal Tech News - June 30, 2023
To secure supplies of battery metals for EVs produced by its European brands like Maserati, Stellantis is partnering with mining companies at the very front of the supply chain.
A sample of skutterudite, a cobalt mineral often enriched with nickel (nickel skutterudite) that was named after the historic Skuterud mine on a property now being explored by Kuniko.
To help ensure that it has future supplies of the nickel and cobalt that will be needed for the electric vehicles produced by Alfa Romero, Maserati, Peugeot, and its other European brands, Stellantis has signed an offtake agreement to buy 35% of the future nickel sulfate and cobalt sulfate produced from Kuniko Ltd.'s mineral exploration projects in Norway.
The production of nickel and cobalt from Kuniko's Skuterud and Ringerike projects about 30 miles northwest of Oslo are not imminent. In fact, the junior mining company is still in the early stages of exploring the full potential of its Norwegian battery metals projects.
Stellantis, however, understands that in order to have enough battery materials needed to achieve its own Dare Forward 2030 strategic plan in a world where virtually every other global automaker is vying for limited supplies of certain metals needed to achieve their own ambitious EV strategies requires investments in the very front end of the supply chain.
This is why the automaker best known in North America for its Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, and Ram brands is also investing A$8 million (approximately US$5.3 million) to purchase a 19.99% stake in Kuniko and nominating one member to the mineral exploration company's board.
"We are on an aggressive path to securing a holistic portfolio of raw materials needed to meet our Dare Forward 2030 electrification targets," said Maxime Picat, chief purchasing and supply chain officer at Stellantis. "With Kuniko, we are adding another lever to support our European battery needs with a local and environmentally conscious solution from its Norwegian projects."
Stellantis previously entered into a similar but larger equity investment and offtake agreement with Vulcan Energy Resources Ltd., which spun out Kuniko to focus on its Zero Carbon Lithium project in Germany's Rhine River Valley.
In addition to Kuniko and Vulcan, Stellantis' roster of EV metal partnerships includes Alliance Nickel (nickel-cobalt), Controlled Thermal Resources (lithium), Element 25 (manganese), McEwen Copper (copper), and Terrafame (battery chemicals).
While Skuterud and Ringerike are still in the early exploration phase, both of these Kuniko properties have a cobalt mining provenance that goes back centuries.
More than 1 million metric tons of cobalt ore was mined from Skuterud from 1773 to 1898, which ranked among the world's largest cobalt-producing mines of its time.
Drilling by Kuniko has shown that a potentially large and high-grade deposit of cobalt-copper ore remains at Skuterud, including one hole that cut 6.2 meters averaging 0.43% cobalt, which is considered very high-grade for the battery metal.
"These are exceptional assay results from our new shallow mineralized zone at the Middagshvile target," said Kuniko CEO Antony Beckmand.
The mining history of Ringerike, which lies about 10 miles northeast of Skuterud, extends back even further. The historic Ertelien mine on the Ringerike property produced roughly 400,000 metric tons of nickel-copper-cobalt ore between 1688 and 1716.
Drilling by Kuniko confirms that high-grade mineralization remains, including one hole that cut 25.1 meters of massive sulfide mineralization near the old Ertelien mine averaging 1.14% nickel, 1.2% copper, and 0.07% cobalt.
While Kuniko has some work ahead to transform these historic mines into modern-day sources of metals needed for the transition to clean energy and transportation, the backing of global automakers like Stellantis will bolster these efforts.
"This strategic partnership with Stellantis promotes sustainable European battery value chain solutions and validates the potential of our battery metals project portfolio in Norway," said Beckmand. "Together with Stellantis, we eagerly anticipate working hand in hand to achieve exploration success, move towards production, and make meaningful contributions to the growth and advancement of the European battery industry."
With more than 16 years of covering mining, Shane is renowned for his insights and and in-depth analysis of mining, mineral exploration and technology metals.
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