First Nation–owned critical minerals project secures rights to advanced magnesium extraction process in Manitoba

Jim Rondeau, pictured in a file image while serving as a member of the Manitoba Legislative Assembly, is now a director with Minago Critical Minerals Project. He says a licencing agreement with a U.S.-based company will help to make Manitoba a lead supplier of magnesium. (CTV News Winnipeg)

A critical minerals project that is focused on positioning Manitoba as the “magnesium capital of Canada” is one step closer to that goal after securing rights to a highly efficient magnesium extraction process.

Minago Development GP Inc., a mineral development project entirely owned by Norway House Cree Nation, announced on Monday it has signed a licensing agreement with Wyoming-based company Big Blue Technologies. The agreement grants Minago exclusive rights in Canada to the company’s magnesium extraction process.

• Latest updates on commodities here

“This is a huge economic boom,” said Jim Rondeau, a director of Minago and former provincial cabinet minister who served as a member of the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba for Assiniboia from 1999 to 2016.

“Magnesium is currently using what they call the Pidgeon process, which is not a very environmentally friendly (extraction) process,” Rondeau said. “So we said, ‘somewhere there has to be a green, clean magnesium process.’ Well, we found one, and that was with Big Blue Technologies.”

Using the new magnesium extraction process, known as the aluminothermic reduction method, it delivers up to 98 per cent lower carbon emissions than conventional processes, according to Minago.

“And we’re looking at how we can sequester two per cent or better of the pollution—or carbon—of the process into the ground, because you can do carbon sequestering in dolomite,” Rondeau said. “So, what we’re believing is we can make it either carbon neutral or a carbon sink and have a totally green project.”

Rondeau said Minago intends to apply the extraction process to 111 million tonnes of dolomite—a mineral that contains approximately 12 per cent magnesium—located about 95 kilometres north of Grand Rapids, on Norway House’s traditional territory.

Rondeau, who served as minister of science, energy, technology and mines under former premier Gary Doer, said he “used to dream about opening something like this.”

“This is exciting, but what I think what’s most important is that Norway House Cree Nation wants to see development, wants to see employment, wants to see a community becoming a have-community.”

Under the agreement with Big Blue Technologies—a technology company striving to reimagine magnesium production—Minago has also secured the rights to sell the magnesium extracted using the highly efficient method.

Rondeau said under the newly acquired extraction process, 91 to 94 per cent of magnesium can be recovered from the dolomite. Rondeau added that the extraction method doesn’t require any water, doesn’t create any solid or liquid waste, and creates a byproduct that is useful in the steel industry.

“And that material actually sells for US$500 a tonne, and we have some companies in Canada that want to purchase that. So, 100 per cent of the process material can be utilized, either through making steel or expensive, hard-concrete, and the rest is magnesium,” Rondeau said.

“We’re talking millions of dollars, hundreds of jobs, and being the magnesium supplier for the entire country, and doing it right environmentally,” he said.

“If we’re making $200 million a year in just the magnesium production, that changes the whole view of Norway House and northern Manitoba … It makes Canada self-sufficient in magnesium for generations.”

Rondeau said Norway House Cree Nation will be getting “the vast majority of all the benefits” from the minerals project.

“It’s changing the whole channel of resource development. So that’s not a bunch of companies doing it. It’s the First Nation picking the partners, picking the technology, picking the people to create the new vision on economics,” said Rondeau, who also taught in Norway House in the 1980s.

• Latest economic news on BNNBloomberg.ca

Canada presently consumes around 25,000 tonnes of primary magnesium annually, according to Minago, with over 90 per cent of the global magnesium supply coming from China. The mineral has many applications, such as creating lightweight and high-strength materials commonly used in the automotive and aerospace industries.

North America currently has no primary magnesium production, according to Minago.

Rondeau said around 50 people from Norway House and other communities have been trained to work in the site so far. However, he said magnesium production at the site has yet to start due to the challenge of getting sufficient electricity to the area.

“As soon as we get power to the system… we could be producing by 2027,” he said. “This is such a good win.”