Brazilian Nickel advances project financing with LOI for $550m

Brazilian Nickel announced on Monday that it has received a letter of interest (LOI) from the US International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) for a $550 million loan for its Piauí nickel project in Brazil.

The funding represents 40% of the project’s overall financing package, the company said. Battery metals investment firm TechMet, in which DFC is a shareholder, owns 70% of Brazilian Nickel.

Piauí is an advanced-stage nickel laterite heap-leach project with a mineral reserve of 99 million tonnes at grades of 0.84% nickel and 0.05% cobalt. It began production in 2022 at an average production rate of 27,000 tonnes of nickel and 900 tonnes of cobalt per year during the first 10 years of operation.

“Brazil has the potential to become the most important nickel producer in the world outside Indonesia, and the Piaui project will be part of building clean, well governed alternative supply chains to balance China and Indonesia’s dominance of the industry,” TechMet CEO Brian Menell said in a news release.

“Brazilian Nickel’s Piauí nickel project represents an opportunity to advance critical mineral development in Brazil, diversify critical supply chains, and foster economic growth in the region,” added Danielle Montgomery, DFC’s acting vice president of infrastructure and critical minerals.

The DFC, established in 2019, aims to provide an alternative to Beijing-led overseas financing in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Currently, China processes approximately 65% of the world’s nickel and 82% of its cobalt.

Brazilian Nickel expects to convert the LOI into a committed financing facility for the project by early 2025.