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London-based private equity fund Appian Capital is reportedly in advanced talks to sell its Atlantic Nickel unit in Brazil for about $1 billion, with Canadian Teck Resources (the company did not comment).
The Canadian company’s main interest is Atlantic Nickel’s Santa Rita open-pit nickel-cobalt mine in the northeastern state of Bahia.
One of the largest open-pit nickel sulphide mines in the world, the Santa Rita was operated by Mirabela Nickel for six years before being put into “care and maintenance” due to low nickel prices in 2015.
Appian, which acquired the mine in 2018 from Mirabela Nickel as part of a bankruptcy process, is reportedly looking to recoup its investment capital to bring the mine back online.
The open-pit operations, which are expected to last until 2028, have an estimated annual production capacity of 16.5ktpa of nickel in sulphide concentrate. Santa Rita will then be converted to an underground mining operation, extending the life of the mine from eight to 34 years.
Based on a preliminary economic assessment (PEA) for Santa Rita published a year ago, the measured and indicated open-pit resources are at 59.15 million tonnes of 0.33% nickel sulphide, 0.11% copper, 0.01% cobalt, 0.03 grams of palladium per tonne, 0.06 grams of platinum per tonne and 0.04 grams of gold per tonne.
Resources indicated for the underground mine count 54.59 million tonnes with 0.58% nickel sulphide, 0.18% copper, 0.01% cobalt, 0.05 grams palladium, 0.10 grams platinum and 0.07 grams gold.
Last week, the company shipped 11,121.44 tonnes of nickel concentrate, the largest amount it has sold so far this year, bringing annual exports to over 80,000 tonnes.
