Brazilian Nickel, Westwin ink offtake deal on Piauí project for US market

Brazilian Nickel has agreed to supply Westwin Elements with high-grade mixed hydroxide precipitate (MHP) produced at its flagship nickel project to serve the US battery metals market.

Under the deal, the UK-based miner would sell 10,000 tonnes per annum (tpa) of nickel in MHP and about 240 to 400 tpa of cobalt in MHP, extracted from its Piauí deposit in Brazil using its laterite heap-leaching process.

Westwin, which operates the only major US nickel refinery in Oklahoma, would then process the MHP material into class 1 nickel powder and briquettes for the US market.

The offtake agreement, Brazilian Nickel says, would help advance the goal of establishing a cost-effective critical minerals supply chain and support the overall funding of its Piauí project.

“This agreement with Westwin not only strengthens Brazilian Nickel’s funding structure, but, more importantly, confirms our proven capability to produce high-quality nickel and to position ourselves as a key player in the global critical minerals market,” CEO Mark Travers said in a news release.

“It underscores BRN’s strategic role in reinforcing supply chain resilience and our commitment to being a reliable, long-term partner to customers in key markets,” Travers said.

“Establishing dependable supply chain relationships is essential to restoring US refining capacity,” Westwin CEO KaLeigh Long added. “This agreement advances Westwin’s mission to convert responsibly produced feedstock into Class 1 materials inside the United States, strengthening supply chain security for advanced manufacturing and critical defense applications.”

Last year, Brazilian Nickel signed preliminary offtake agreements with European processors Electro Mobility Materials and Königswarter & Ebell Chemische Fabrik, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Pure Battery Technologies, to strengthen the European battery supply chain and advance cleaner material sourcing.