Electra Battery Materials hasn’t put a date on when construction will resume at its Temiskaming cobalt refinery project. But the Toronto company is making moves for a restart by hiring a lead construction manager.
Michael Green is Electra’s new construction director tasked with completing the final construction phase at the uncompleted facility, located between the town of Cobalt and Temiskaming Shores.
Portrayed as a can-do guy with 30 years of steering big projects with companies like Trans Mountain Corp., Enbridge Pipelines, K+S Potash and Suncor, Green's last assignment was as construction manager for Calibre Mining’s Valentine Gold Mine in central Newfoundland.
"Mike's extensive experience and proven track record as a construction lead make him a valuable addition to our team as we move toward the final phase of construction at the Ontario Refinery," said Electra CEO Trent Mell in an Oct. 1 statement.
"His dedication to people and safety first, along with his experience building and delivering resource projects will be instrumental in advancing the refinery to completion and commissioning, and ensuring we meet our objectives regarding construction schedule and budget management.”
Mark Trevisiol, Electra’s vice-president of project management, said Green has built his reputation on handling complex projects.
"We are confident that his skills and hands-on experience will lead the project team to successfully execute the remaining construction at our refinery site.”
Electra wants to build and operate the first-of-its-kind cobalt refinery in North America out of its fully-permitted northeastern Ontario plant site. That value proposition is what attracted the U.S. Department of Defense to invest US$20 million ($27.4 million) in the unfinished plant.
The Pentagon money is only 20 per cent of US$60 million Electra needs to finance the remainder of construction.
Electra is a pre-production startup technology company that’s acquired, refurbished and expanded the formerly mothballed Yukon refinery. As a so-called mid-stream processing plant, the facility would take mined cobalt material and convert it into an upgraded material that can be used in electric vehicle battery manufacturing.
Electra has agreements in place with offshore miners in the Democratic Republic of Congo to supply the refinery with feedstock and has customers queuing up to take the finished cobalt product off their hands to feed the North American supply chain. Snagging the remaining capital to finish the refinery’s construction is Electra's primary focus these days.
Last year, inflating project costs forced Electra to pause construction, revise its financing plans and schedule, and go hunting for capital through strategic investors and government critical minerals-related programming.
While massive amounts of federal and provincial government dollars have been flowing into electric vehicle battery plants in southern Ontario, little to no subsidies have been earmarked for Electra's refinery project and proposed lithium processing plants in northwestern Ontario that would feed these facilities.
