Published: May 20, 2022 |

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Horizonte Minerals, the nickel development company with assets in Brazil, has officially commenced construction and broken ground at its flagship Araguaia Nickel Project.

A ground breaking ceremony was held on May 18, 2022, this key milestone marks the transition of the project from development to the construction phase. This Tier 1 project has a 24-month construction timeframe with Stage 1 target production of 14,500 tpa 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.

“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,” said Jeremy Martin, CEO of Horizonte.

“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 percent of our pre-contingency project direct capex on budget, which is a very positive result,” added Martin.

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, focused around early works and site preparation ahead of the main mobilization 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 totaling US$204 million with a further U$66 million of contracts to be awarded imminently, on budget.

Current global inflation is well documented, however the company has an embedded culture of continuous optimization and business improvement throughout the organization as part of a plan to offset these effects. This work is designed to allow for early optimization 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.

About Horizonte Minerals
Horizonte Minerals is developing two 100 percent owned, Tier 1 projects in Parà state, Brazil — the Araguaia Nickel Project and the Vermelho Nickel-Cobalt Project. Both projects are large scale, high-grade, low-cost, low-carbon and scalable. Araguaia is fully funded and in construction. The project will produce 29,000 tonnes of nickel per year to supply the stainless steel market. Vermelho is at feasibility study stage and will produce 25,000 tonnes of nickel and 1,250 tonnes of cobalt to supply the EV battery market. Horizonte’s combined near-term production profile of over 50,000 tonnes of nickel per year positions the company as a globally significant nickel producer. Horizonte is developing a new nickel district in Brazil that will benefit from established infrastructure, including hydroelectric power available in the Carajás Mining District.

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