Brazil will become a launch pad for Vale Base Metals to recycle slag from one of its nickel mines into useful fertilizer material.
The international nickel miner announced Oct. 3 that it has signed an agreement with BluestOne, a Brazilian environmental company, to process refinery slag from Vale's Onça Pumai nickel mine into “carbon-efficient mineral fertilizers with broad use in the agricultural sector.”
This offtake agreement, which runs for 10 years, involves running 50,000 tonnes of slag annually through a processing plant, which will be built near Onça Puma within two years.
BluestOne bills itself as Latin America’s largest recovery and management company in transforming "environmental liabilities," such as solid waste and byproducts, into quality, high-end products such as fertilizers, and welding and abrasive electrodes.
The two companies have agreed to work together to explore other “circular economy opportunities” for treating and repurposing other waste products from Vale mines.
Vale Base Metals, a new spinoff of its Brazilian-based parent company Vale, is headquartered in Toronto. One of its global assets include the mines, mill, refinery and smelter in Sudbury.
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The two parties also agreed to work together to explore other “circular economy opportunities” for treating and repurposing other waste products from Onça Puma and other Vale Base Metals operation, globally, which includes “bolstering BluestOne's production of recycled nickel recovered from waste products around the world.”
"Waste-to-value and circular mining are key levers in our sustainability strategy and technology road map,” said Deshnee Naidoo, CEO of Vale Base Metals in a statement.
“This MOU and scalability of BluestOne's technology supports our ambition to capture value from what have historically been waste streams while reducing our legacy environmental footprint as part of a wider approach to circular mining."
Marcelo Carratú, cofounder of BluestOne, said, “BluestOne was born with the circular economy in its DNA and sustainability is the reason for our existence. This long-term partnership with Vale Base Metals fills us with pride as it represents a significant milestone to globally advance our mission in further developing new green mining solutions and to promote biodiversity preservation, education and environmental restoration initiatives."
