Open Mineral and Sherritt partner to tackle arsenic in precious metal concentrates

World Economic Forum (WEF) Tech Pioneer and Global Innovator Open Mineral has partnered with Sherritt International – a world leader in the mining and refining of nickel and cobalt – to jointly develop a business case for the hydrometallurgical treatment of complex precious metal concentrates.

• Open Mineral is active in the trade of precious metal concentrates and fed by millions of unique data points, has continued to advance its digital tooling, commercial pricing, and trade facilitation across this market.
• The custom-traded market for precious metal-rich concentrates has surged over the past decade from a few hundred thousand tonnes to a multimillion-tonne market in 2022.

The proliferation of technologies able to treat this fast-growing market has centred around China and various other outlets which have sought to supplement their integrated feeds (or technologies) with 3^rd-party concentrates. In late 2021, China introduced new legislation on the import thresholds of deleterious elements for precious metal concentrates, such as arsenic, triggering wide-reaching impacts on global concentrate flows and the economics of a large pool of current and future mining projects.

Open Mineral actively leverages its data and technology to pursue a number of ESG transparency and benchmarking initiatives. These initiatives work to break down information silos and support environmentally net positive shifts in complex markets while driving maximum value chain optimization. This partnership with Sherritt International explores the implementation of new processing technology to solve ESG and precious metal concentrate market challenges regarding arsenic pollution.

Open Mineral’s Head of Mining Solutions Benjamin Cox says, “Currently, the global trade in arsenic and other impurities results in multi-level impacts across human, environmental, and industrial systems by contaminating air and water cycles. Sherritt has a long history of building hydrometallurgical plants and best-in-class technologies; combining Sherritt’s industry knowledge with Open Mineral data and our commitment to ESG initiatives gives this project a unique chance to price, optimize and potentially solve a major pollution problem.”

Sherritt’s Chief Commercial Officer, Greg Honig says “Sherritt continues to advance innovative, proprietary processing solutions to improve environmental performance and increase economic value. We realize the importance of partnerships and collaboration amongst industry leaders to increase the probability of success and more importantly increase the positive impact of ESG and other related improvements. As such, we are excited to partner with Open Mineral to combine their market expertise and data with Sherritt’s technical and operational expertise in hydrometallurgical processes to significantly tackle the challenge of arsenic pollution within the complex precious metals concentrate market.”