Talon Metals Corp. [TLO-TSX, TLOFF-OTC Pink], through its wholly-owned subsidiary Talon Nickel (USA) LLC, has been awarded a research and development contract from the U.S. Department of Defence’s Defense Logistics Agency. The DLA will provide funding in the fixed amount of US$2.47 million to finance scientific research on new approaches for extracting nickel, cobalt and iron from domestic nickel sulphide ores and tailings. The funding will be provided over a 15-month period for a project titled “Building a Domestic Supply Chain of +99% Pure Nickel Powders and Value-Added Products for Clean Energy and Defense Related Manufacturing through a Novel Flowsheet to Process Domestically Sourced Polymetallic Sulphide Ores.’’
The company said funding underscores the long-term strategic importance of nickel for defense platforms, electric batteries, and other clean energy systems.
“China is executing a long-term strategy to control the global nickel market through investing billions of dollars in Indonesian nickel mining and refining,’’ said Talon CEO Henri van Rooyen. “Today, over half of the world’s supply of nickel is produced by Sino-Indonesian firms and funded by Chinese state banks,’’ he said.
“This funding from the DLA, as appropriated by Congress, enhances the United States’ ability to responsibly and sustainably extract nickel from its own mineral resources through new approaches to extraction that can yield high nickel recovery, recovery of byproducts and waste reduction. American innovation is required to reduce our dependency on China and Indonesia for critical minerals like nickel.’’
Talon is a base metal company engaged in a joint venture with Rio Tinto Plc [RIO-NYSE] on the high-grade Tamarack nickel-copper-cobalt project in central Minnesota. The Tamarack project consists of a large land position (18 kilometres of strike length) with additional high grade intercepts outside the current resource area.
Talon has an earn-in right to acquire up to 60% of the Tamarack nickel project and currently owns 51%.
To earn an additional 9.0% interest for a total of 60% (by March 2026), Talon must complete a feasibility study and pay US$10 million to Rio Tinto.
In an update in October, 2022, the company said the total indicated resource now stands at approximately 8.56 million tonnes, grading 1.73% nickel, plus by-products (2.34% nickel equivalent NiEq) containing 148,000 tonnes of nickel. This represents a 98% increase in the amount of contained nickel (in the indicated category) compared with the previous estimate.
The total estimated inferred resource now stands at approximately 8.46 million tonnes of grade 0.83% nickel, plus by-products (1.19% NiEq), containing 70,000 tonnes of nickel.
Talon has an agreement with Tesla Motors Ltd. [TSLA-NASDAQ] to supply the manufacturer with 75,000 tonnes of (165 million pounds) of nickel in concentrate (and certain by-products, including cobalt and iron) from the Tamarack project over a period of six years once commercial production is achieved. Talon shares were unchanged at $0.09 on Thursday and previously traded in a 52-week range of 21 cents and $0.075.
