Horizonte Minerals (HZM) shares shot up over 20% today following news that the company has discovered a significant new nickel resource at its Serra do tapa deposit.
The new resource consists of 70.3 million tonnes grading at 1.22% nickel, increasing the total mineral tonnage of Horizonte’s 100%-owned nickel project by 30%.
With over 280 million tonnes of resources in one of the largest mining districts, indicating it also comes with infrastructure, Horizonte is now sitting on one of the “world's largest inventory of undeveloped nickel and cobalt Resources globally.”
Such a discovery has opened new opportunities for the company.
“This generates the potential for Horizonte to develop two mining centres within trucking distance of each other, the first, in the south at Araguaia, where we are developing a ferronickel operation to produce around 14,500 tonnes of nickel with the Stage 1 plant expandable to 29,000 tonnes of nickel per year.
The second production centre in the north, at the Vermelho nickel cobalt project which has the capacity to produce 15,000 to 18,000 tonnes per year of nickel and associated cobalt,” said CEO of Horizonte Jeremy Martin.
And nickel and cobalt are having a moment. Today, nickel is being priced at $15,630/tonne, a nearly 30% increase from June of this year.
Moreover, analysts at research firm Wood Mackenzie expect a supply crunch by the mid-2020s for materials essential in batteries. Demand for nickel, on the other hand, is likely to skyrocket as global electric vehicle sales are expected to grow from 7% of all passenger cars to nearly 40% by 2040. Such a demand-skewed nickel market would certainly be welcome by anyone controlling, say, a vast nickel deposit.
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