PDAC: Faster permitting key to advancing critical mineral projects, panel warns

Governments must help cut permitting and production timelines if Canada is to produce enough minerals to reach net zero goals by 2050, says the CEO of Ring of Fire project developer Wyloo Metals Canada.

“There are a lot of projects near to approval. The big ask is the shortening of the time frame,” Kristan Straub, CEO of Wyloo Metals Canada said on Sunday at the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada (PDAC) convention in Toronto.

“It’s not just on government, it’s also on us in industry. We want to work with First Nations and NGOs and get groups to the table and ensure conservation and Indigenous rights all come together,” said Straub, who is also a member of the Henvey Inlet First Nation in northeastern Ontario.

Straub spoke on a four-member panel on derisking critical mineral supply chains in the face of changing geopolitical landscapes at PDAC.

His appearance at PDAC comes as his own company hopes to develop the Eagle’s Nest nickel-copper-PGM project in the Ring of Fire region of northern Ontario.

Even though many Indigenous group oppose mining in the region, the province and two First Nations communities announced at PDAC on Tuesday an agreement towards developing an all-season road into the northern area. The Ontario government has urged Ottawa to provide more regulatory support for mining in the region.  

Rinaldo Jeanty, assistant deputy minister with Natural Resources Canada, agreed that more government support is needed to speed up project pipelines. 

But he also said critical mineral development needs a lot more cash.

His own government’s $1.5-billion Critical Minerals Infrastructure Fund (CMIF), announced last November, won’t be enough to meet the challenge, he said.

“If you look at Canada, we have three electric vehicle battery factories. We need about 15 new mines coming into production by 2035 to meet supply and demand for those three factories,” he said. “Since 2005, we’ve only been able to open four critical mineral mines. So we have to do this five times faster than we did before. That’s $25 billion that’s needed to achieve those goals.”

Investing in production

Moderator Alistair Corbett, who is also a senior partner with consultancy Bain & Company, noted that since the United States passed its Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) in 2022, much of the investment in the critical mineral supply chain has been into battery production and processing, and not mining.

How, he asked the panel, can mining itself attract more investment?

Straub said the answer is a two-sided coin. On one side, cities along 400-series highways in southern Ontario have industrial infrastructure where setting up battery production facilities is straightforward.

“But with mines, we find them where we find them, both fortunately and unfortunately,” he said. “The sensitive environments are where they are. Sometimes we have to make a call on where industrial activity doesn’t happen. But we want to have an established system for making decisions on conservation and development.”

Jeanty said that education about mining is important to draw more investment, to show a sometimes skeptical public that mining today isn’t what it was decades ago. 

The price factor

Corbett also asked the panel about the role of nickel prices and moving critical mineral projects forward.

The global nickel price was at US$17,525 per tonne (US$7.94 per lb.) on Wednesday, according to Trading Economics, up more than 10% from the low so far this year of US$15,850 on Feb. 7, but far below a peak in December 2022 of US$33,575 a tonne.

Straub said that in his 25 years in the industry, he has seen the cyclicity of prices, especially in response to structural changes. Indonesia’s emergence as a major producer of the metal has pushed the market into oversupply and prices have fallen.

“(The minerals) are sustainable through the cycles,” he said. “We’ll continue to need ever increasing amounts (of nickel) across the globe. We have the processing ability in North America and Australia. We have high-quality, high-grade nickel deposits. We need to source it sustainably and know where it goes so we don’t destroy the world while trying to save it.”