Orion to develop battery metals refining facility in the Northern Cape
Orion has announced a significant development in its strategy to create a fully-integrated base metal mining and processing business, producing high-value metals for the fast-growing battery materials sector, achieved through entering into a Term Sheet that could see it acquire a cornerstone interest in a future base metal refining facility in the Northern Cape region of South Africa.
Key points:
- Term sheet signed with Stratega Metals, providing Orion with binding exclusivity to undertake amenability test work on a 250kg sample of Ni-Cu-Co-PGE-Au concentrates from its Jacomynspan Nickel-PGE Project in South Africa’s Northern Cape Province.
- Orion has the exclusive right to enter into an earn-in agreement to earn a 75% interest in Stratega by funding construction of a demonstration-scale refinery.
- Stratega holds an exclusive licensing agreement to use TCM Research’s suite of proprietary vapour metallurgical technologies (including advanced carbonylation and chlorination techniques) for base metal refining in the Northern Cape.
- Stratega/TCM technology offers the potential to both increased total metal recovery and the payability of metals-in-concentrate produced from polymetallic sulphide ores, such as Orion’s Jacomynspan Project, Prieska Copper-Zinc Mine and Okiep Copper Project.
Value-added metal products (including Carbonyl Nickel Powders) produced by the TCM process – commonly referred to as “battery precursor products” – can trade at a considerable premium to spot metal prices.
