BHP Nickel West has invested in a new growth opportunity by acquiring the Honeymoon Well development project from Russia’s Norilsk Nickel, which is exiting Australia.
The acquisition includes the Albion Downs North and Jericho exploration joint ventures, in which BHP already has a 50 per cent interest.
The tenement package is located in the northern Goldfields, 50 kilometres from BHP’s Mt Keith mine and 100km from its Leinster concentrator.
It includes the Wedgetail deposit, which contains a high-grade nickel sulphide resource.
BHP’s Nickel West Asset president Eddy Haegel said the acquisition was an exciting opportunity to enhance the group’s resource base in Western Australia.
“Proximity to our existing facilities makes us the natural owners of these deposits and provides potential options to bring the undeveloped resources to market,” Mr Haegel said in a statement.
“Nickel continues to be an essential input into new technologies that will improve the battery storage needed for renewables and electric vehicle manufacturing.”
In a statement, Norilsk said the transaction would allow the company to focus entirely on developing its assets in Russia.
“With the sale of Honeymoon Well nickel project we complete the strategic exit from Australian operations and reinforce our focus on the development of our tier-1 asset portfolio in Russia,” senior vice-president Sergey Dubovitsky said.
“We are grateful to BHP as our JV partner in Australia and appreciate their commitment to prompt execution of the transaction.”
The terms of the sale were not disclosed.
