Toronto-based Vale Base Metals has signed a commercial offtake and nonbinding Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with BluestOne, Saltinho, São Paulo, a Brazilian company that transforms waste to products for agriculture, to provide up to 50,000 mt/y of refinery slag from its Onça Puma nickel mine in Brazil for the next 10 years.
BluestOne will commence construction within two years of a plant near Onça Puma to process slag products into a solution to enhance carbon-efficient mineral fertilizers with broad use in the agricultural sector.
Both companies also agreed to work together to explore additional circular economy opportunities for treatment and repurposing further waste products from Onça Puma, as well as other Vale Base Metals operations globally. This includes potentially bolstering BluestOne’s production of recycled nickel recovered from waste products around the world.
The MOU also outlines cooperation between Vale and BluestOne to explore additional sustainability partnerships, including utilizing the fertilizer from slag for biomass production.