Could you tell us briefly about yourself and how you came to lead Brazilian Nickel?
I began as a corporate‐securities lawyer in Toronto, focusing on mining finance and M&A. In 2001 I joined Inco—then the world’s second-largest nickel company—staying through Vale’s 2006 acquisition and ultimately serving as Vale Base Metals’ CEO from 2019 to late 2021. Over those two decades, I added sustainability, H&S, communications and government-relations portfolios, pivoting the business toward critical-mineral supply for the energy transition.
After leaving Vale I took six months off and looked for a role where I could directly advance Western access to critical minerals. TechMet’s chairman Brian Menell approached me about Brazilian Nickel. The company’s Piauí Nickel Project (PNP) offered a scalable, low-carbon way to add nickel supply, so I accepted the CEO role to help deliver a material, Western-oriented supply response.
Brazil has huge undeveloped nickel reserves, yet low prices—driven by the Sino-Indonesian partnership—have stalled investment. How can that challenge be overcome?
Today’s US $15,000 t price does not incentivize projects outside Indonesia, and many observers believe Chinese participants deliberately keep it there to deter non-Chinese supply. Traditional Western miners are reluctant to fund greenfields, so copper sees capital while nickel does not.
We believe this pricing window is temporary. Indonesian grades are falling fast, costs will rise, and most output is captive to China’s industrial base. In three-to-four years the West will face a shortfall unless it backs robust, economically grounded projects now—projects like ours that can supply outside the Chinese supply chain.
What are the benefits of the heap leaching method of mining nickel and why did you choose the Piauí Nickel Project specifically?
Outside Indonesia, most laterite projects rely on furnaces or high-pressure acid leach (HPAL), both capital-intensive and technically complex. Our team has spent more than a decade perfecting atmospheric heap-leach for nickel laterites—an approach long proven in copper and gold—yielding lower CapEx and OpEx and strong ESG credentials.
Piauí’s geology, test work and 18-month demonstration plant confirm the method works: we have produced battery-grade nickel and cobalt offtake that meets customer specs. The orebody, the process and the maturity of our studies make PNP the ideal first deployment before replicating the model elsewhere.
The U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) issued you a letter of interest covering roughly 40 % of the project’s CapEx. When will this funding be confirmed, and how do you plan to attract the rest of the capital needed?
Piauí needs about US $1.4 billion to first production under a project-finance structure—debt plus equity plus an existing Ecora Resources royalty. DFC’s due-diligence is progressing well; they will anchor most of the debt, complemented by other export-credit agencies linked to major equipment suppliers.
On equity, OEM enthusiasm has cooled since 2022, but sovereign capital is accelerating. Brazil’s BNDES / Vale critical-minerals fund, EU initiatives such as KfW’s vehicle, and U.S. instruments are all advancing. We expect sovereign equity commitments in the coming months; once they surface, private investors typically follow.
Given the race for critical minerals, are Western governments finally easing regulatory headwinds for mining?
Policy language has shifted: Canada just announced faster approvals for “major projects,” the U.S. is reassessing domestic copper and nickel permits, and Brazil is streamlining its own processes.
From our standpoint PNP is already fully permitted for construction, with only routine, stage-gated licenses remaining. The regulatory environment is therefore supportive, and we do not see permitting as a bottleneck.
Indonesia’s nickel has drawn criticism for high carbon and environmental impact. What ESG advantages does your heap-leach route offer?
Heap-leach is straightforward: mine, stack, irrigate with dilute sulphuric acid, collect pregnant solution, and refine—at ambient temperature and zero pressure. Compared with furnaces or HPAL it slashes energy use, water consumption and materials-of-construction complexity, yielding inherently lower carbon intensity.
Because we would be the first commercial laterite heap-leach for nickel, we ran an 18-month demonstration plant. It met specification, customers tested the metal in EV batteries, and lessons learned are embedded in the final design—so the technology risk is now well constrained.
You say the project is “ready to build.” What is the timeline from here to first nickel?
Engineering, permitting and construction readiness are essentially complete, aligned to a financing close that would allow a mid-2026 construction start.
On that schedule, first nickel and cobalt production is targeted for H2 2029. This year’s work focuses on detailed engineering to further de-risk execution while we finalize the full funding package.
