Horizonte Minerals Plc breaks ground at Araguaia Nickel Project

A ground-breaking ceremony was held on 18 May 2022, marking the transition of the project from development to the construction phase. This Tier 1 project has a 24-month construction timeframe with Stage 1 (first line) target production of 14 500 tpy of nickel. Araguaia will be a large high-grade scalable, low-cost producer, with a long mine life and will be a low-carbon source of ferronickel.

The company has awarded the majority of the key long-lead equipment contracts including, the award of the furnace earthworks contract, the EPCM contract and now broken ground. A significant amount of progress has been made in the four months since project approval, focussed around early works and site preparation ahead of the main mobilisation of the earthwork’s contractor, basic and detailed engineering and the tender and award of a number of key process equipment packages.

As at the end of April 2022, the company had awarded contracts totalling US$204 million, with a further U$66 million of contracts to be awarded imminently, on budget. In total this represents approximately 50% of its pre-contingency project direct CAPEX.

Current global inflation is well documented, however, the company has an embedded culture of continuous optimisation and business improvement throughout the organisation as part of a plan to offset these effects. This work is designed to allow for early optimisation in the engineering process and identification of cost saving initiatives, a critical process in the current macro environment, and has yielded positive results to date.

Jeremy Martin, CEO of Horizonte, commented: “We are extremely excited to have broken ground at our fully-funded Araguaia project. We are a step closer to achieving our vision of bringing this project into production and generating first revenues. This all comes at a time where the nickel market is facing constrained supply which will benefit Horizonte as we become a globally significant producer.

“Our team have made excellent progress on the key aspects of engineering, procurement and site works. Whilst we are facing inflationary pressures along with all other global projects, to date we have been able to award approximately 50% of our pre-contingency project direct CAPEX on budget, which is a very positive result.”

Read the article online at: https://www.globalminingreview.com/exploration-development/24052022/horizonte-minerals-plc-breaks-ground-at-araguaia-nickel-project/