Canada Nickel Company is a Canadian mining company developing the Crawford Nickel Sulphide Project near Timmins, Ontario, one of the world’s largest nickel resources. The company aims to supply nickel and cobalt for the EV and stainless steel markets while advancing lower-carbon production through its NetZero Metals subsidiary.
At nine years old, you had a subscription to The Northern Miner and were already dreaming about a career in the mining industry. How did that fascination begin?
Both my grandfathers were involved with mining, so I heard about it from a very early age. My grandfather on my mother's side lived through the mining booms in northern Quebec and had all these great stories about prospectors and gold discoveries. On my dad's side, my grandfather was addicted to penny mining stocks, so mining was always part of the conversation growing up.
That got the ball rolling, although I actually left the sector in 1985 and didn't come back until 2001. I spent years in private equity and management consulting before a role came up at Inco to become head of commodities research. We had just had our first child, and it felt like the right mix of being interesting enough, paying well enough, and not requiring me to travel constantly. That's what pulled me back in.
Nickel has become increasingly important in discussions around critical minerals, supply chain resilience and industrial policy. What is driving renewed interest in nickel, and how do you see demand evolving over the coming years?
Indonesia basically bulldozed its way into the nickel market over the last decade, growing from a single-digit share of supply to more than two-thirds of the market. More recently, it has shifted from maximizing volume to maximizing value, introducing policies designed to ensure more benefits stay in Indonesia. That more disciplined approach helped drive roughly a $5,000-per-ton increase in nickel prices through December and January, and prices have held those gains. Indonesia is effectively an OPEC of one country in the nickel market.
At the same time, governments have realized nickel is another commodity where China and Indonesia control roughly 80% of the global supply. Nickel is critical across industrial, commercial and defence applications, and investors have largely forgotten how strategically important it is. The good thing about nickel is that it has a very diverse set of uses. Historically, demand has grown at about 4-5% annually, roughly double the growth rate of copper and carbon steel, and since 2019 it has been closer to 7% a year. Defence spending is another source of demand going forward, while the large environmental, social and labour footprint associated with Indonesian production is increasing the value of cleaner alternatives. As governments focus more on security, resilience and supply chain diversification, the fundamentals are starting to reassert themselves.
The Crawford project is entering its final stretch after years of exploration and permitting. How has being identified as a nation-building project changed the trajectory of the development?
With the announcement last week, we effectively have one major step left. We're expecting a final permitting decision in the early part of the summer, which would put us much closer to the finish line. Beyond that, there are still secondary federal and provincial permits to secure, but the focus now is on completing permitting, putting financing in place by early next year, making a construction decision next year and breaking ground by October 2027. Being identified as a nation-building project has been enormously helpful. First, having the Prime Minister publicly talk about your mining project almost never happens. Second, it has improved both permitting and financing. We now effectively have a permitting concierge team and a financing concierge team. Having a single point of contact helps prevent projects from getting stuck in the system, while coordinating access to multiple government funding programs reduces financing risk.
There has been a major shift in focus, pace and energy, and I think that will translate into more dollars flowing into the sector. Crawford itself is a $2 billion capital project. Phase one would produce just under 30,000 tonnes of nickel annually, and phase two would take us to just under 50,000 tonnes. At that point, we would become the largest nickel sulphide operation in the Western world. Just as importantly, Crawford isn't our only asset. Most junior mining companies have a single project, whereas we've unlocked an entire district with eight separate projects already identified and more still to come. We're in the final stretch. The key issue now is making sure the various government financing components come together quickly enough to support a final construction decision.
We're giving governments an excellent opportunity to demonstrate they can walk the talk and write the cheques.
One of the most striking projections around Crawford is the claim that emissions intensity could be roughly 90% below the global nickel average. What makes that possible?
Fundamentally, there are two types of nickel ore: laterites and sulphides. Laterites require enormous amounts of energy or intensive acid processing. In Indonesia, many of those facilities are heavily coal-powered, resulting in emissions of 50-80 tonnes of CO2 per tonne of nickel in some cases.
Sulphides are far less energy intensive. We can upgrade our ore to roughly 34% nickel before processing through relatively simple, low-cost steps. Sulphur itself can be used as a fuel source during processing, and Ontario's electricity grid is predominantly hydroelectric and nuclear. Together, those advantages create a significant emissions benefit and a major competitive advantage.
Many junior mining companies argue that Canada has historically struggled to convert resource potential into operating mines. Why has that been the case, and what still needs to change?
In certain jurisdictions, it has absolutely been difficult to move projects forward, although there has been a very real shift over the last five years. Having gone through the process ourselves before, I can say that change is real and meaningful.
The other challenge is capital markets. Most mining capital still flows to gold, silver and copper, and investors tend to forget there are another 89 elements on the periodic table. If your commodity becomes the flavour of the month, capital is available. If it doesn't, raising money becomes extremely difficult. There's a myth that Canada finances every good mining project, and I can tell you that's absolutely not the case.
Critical minerals projects are increasingly judged on how they engage with Indigenous communities and define responsible development. What separates genuine engagement from simply ticking a compliance box?
The keyword is genuine. Like any relationship, people can tell if you're there for ulterior motives. If you engage early, openly and sincerely, and genuinely want everyone to benefit from the project, that becomes the foundation for everything that follows.
You then have to demonstrate that commitment through action. We've undertaken specific economic engagement initiatives and approached consultation differently by having communities generate sections of the impact assessment report themselves rather than simply reviewing consultant reports. Indigenous consultation is a core part of Canada's permitting process, and communities will only let projects move forward as quickly as they want them to move forward. When trust exists and communities have complete information, projects move through the process with fewer concerns and greater certainty.
