Canada Nickel Crawford (IPT Carbonation)

The Crawford Nickel Project, developed by Canada Nickel Company 42 km north of Timmins, Ontario, is a proposed open-pit nickel-cobalt mine (240,000 tonnes/day ore production, ~41-year operating life) with integrated CO₂ mineralization leveraging the ultramafic host rock. More than 80% of the resource is serpentine, olivine, and brucite (average brucite content 1.9%), and the tailings and waste rock spontaneously and permanently capture atmospheric CO₂ when exposed to air, driven principally by brucite reactivity with serpentine and olivine contributing over longer timescales. Canada Nickel is developing three complementary CO₂ storage pathways at the site: (1) In-Process Tailings (IPT) Carbonation: Accelerated carbonation of tailings during metallurgical processing, with R&D conducted at Ontario research institutions supported by Natural Resources Canada's CCUS Research, Development, and Demonstration stream. (2) Post-processing waste rock and tailings storage: Strategic partnership (announced September 2025) covering CO₂ injection and storage in waste rock and tailings after metallurgical processing. (3) Direct in-situ mineralization: CO₂-saturated water injected via a well into the un-mined ore body prior to extraction, which additionally pre-conditions and fractures the rock mass to reduce downstream blasting, crushing, and grinding energy. Successfully piloted at Crawford between November 20 and December 18, 2025 in collaboration with a U.S. university research team funded by the U.S. Department of Energy's Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy, sequestering approximately 12 tonnes of CO₂ through an injection well drilled to 396 metres depth with no surface leakage or significant seismicity detected.