Structural steel is being erected and concrete is being poured for the refitting and expansion of a one-of-a-kind cobalt refinery in the Temiskaming region.
Electric Battery Materials has been delivering brick-by-brick updates of construction activity this summer at its brownfield site between the Town of Cobalt and the City of Temiskaming Shores.
The aspiring Toronto mineral processor reported this week that old infrastructure is being torn out and new space is being created to begin the installation of new piping, tanks, electrical instrumentation and other mechanical work at the refinery.
Electra is on a strict timeline to begin initial production in second half of 2027 of battery-grade cobalt sulfate once construction is substantially complete by the mid-point of next year.
They’re targetting customers in the North American lithium-ion battery, energy storage and defence marketplace
“We are now seeing the refinery take shape in the field, with concrete, structural steel, equipment setting and piping preparation underway,” said Paolo Toscano, Electra’s vice-president of projects and engineering in an Aug. 18 news release.
“Engineering is substantially complete; several critical construction agreements are now being executed, and our focus is on delivering the project schedule. We remain disciplined in our approach to contractor coordination, safety, cost and schedule as construction advances.”
A couple of Northern Ontario industrial service companies have been awarded construction contracts.
WB Melback, a Haileybury mechanical contractor, is involved in a $26-million contract for the solvent extraction circuit and silo building. That scope of work involves concrete work, structural steel, and installing equipment, piping and electrical systems.
Pro Pipe Construction of Timmins, a Dalcon Construction subsidiary, has a $6.8-million fabrication and installation contract for the structural, mechanical and piping work on the crystallizer circuit.
Kilmarnock Enterprises of Smiths Falls has started removing old piping and compressed air equipment to clear space for new construction and equipment installation as part of a $12.4-million job. This includes concrete and civil works, structural steel, installation of new processing equipment and new piping that will be fabricated on site.
Getting to the construction stage has been a long and arduous journey since Electra acquired the shuttered Yukon refinery in 2017.
Long-awaited construction work began late last year after the company completed its campaign to raise construction capital.
Through a combination of American and Canadian money, Electra raked in the roughly $84 million (Cdn$115.7 million) needed to get the refinery project through to mechanical completion.
That includes a $20-million grant from the U.S. Department of Defense, with Ottawa following with $20 million in grants and loans and the province providing a $17.5-million loan. Electra secured $34 million in private equity.
Electra is promoting this development as North America’s only dedicated cobalt refinery.
China dominates the global cobalt refining space with some processing done in Finland for the European market.
Upon start-up, the refinery’s initial production rate will be 5,100 tonnes with a gradual ramp up to full capacity at 6,500 tonnes, roughly four per cent of the world market for cobalt sulfate.
The business plan is for the refinery to run as a toll milling operation by purchasing cobalt hydroxide, mined by Glencore AG in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), for conversion into a battery-grade grade cobalt sulfate product for the North American market. Eighty per cent of the world’s cobalt comes from the DRC.
Electra has just signed a new cobalt feed purchase agreement with Glencore that lasts through 2031.
By way of downstream customers, South Korean battery maker LG Energy Solution has agreed to take 60 per cent of Electra’s production under a three-year off-take deal that includes an option for three more.
Electra has said conversations are ongoing with other potential customers for the remainder of production.
Down the road, Electra has ambitious plans to grow the refinery’s footprint into a full-scale complex with a commercial-scale recycling operation to extract valuable minerals from crushed battery material (known as black mass), along with nickel processing at some point. The company is also in expansion mode beyond Canada's borders by initiating a study to look into development of nickel processing operation somewhere in the southeastern U.S.
