On the heels of pouring the first nickel concentrate from the mammoth Voisey’s Bay nickel-copper-cobalt project in northern Labrador, comes the opening of the Inco Innovation Centre, a research facility on the campus of Memorial University in St. John’s, Nfld.
Inco Chairman and CEO Scott Hand attended the opening ceremony, along with representatives from Memorial University, and the federal and provincial governments.
“We believe that this centre will help to foster and promote the kind of innovation that has made Voisey’s Bay possible,” Hand said. “Not just technical innovation, but social, political, and economic innovation.”
Inco contributed $13 million to help build the centre, and another $7 million for operating expenses over the next seven years. The funding was agreed upon during negotiations with the government of Newfoundland and Labrador to develop Voisey’s Bay.
The 9,000-sq.-metre Inco Innovation Centre houses a range of research, business and educational facilities on three floors.
The centre will focus on developing technologies to support advanced exploration, as well as a place for applied environmental studies and the development of hydrometallurgical mineral processing techniques.
The centre will house the offices of the Canada Research Chair in Aboriginal Studies and the Centre for Aboriginal Research.
“Given our partnerships with aboriginal communities in northern Labrador, this is a key area of interest for Inco,” Hand said.
Inco is spending US$155 million on research to confirm the technical and economic feasibility of using hydrometallurgical processing to treat nickel concentrates produced at Voisey’s Bay.
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