The government of Canada has made a C$250 000 financial commitment in support of the recently announced battery materials park study, TSX-V-listed Electra Battery Materials has announced.

The study was initiated last month as a partnership with the Ontario government, Glencore and Talon Metals as partners. Project contributions from all parties total C$950 000 and will be completed in phases during the second and third quarter of 2022.

“The federal government has been one of our biggest champions and we are grateful for their support with this collaborative five-party consortium working to build out the missing pieces of the North American battery supply chain,” said Electra CEO Trent Mell.

The project will be expanded to encompass additional environmental, social and governance studies, as well as further engineering and cost studies associated with the construction of a nickel sulphate plant and a battery precursor cathode active materials plant adjacent to Electra's cobalt refinery and recycling plant.

The culmination of this work will result in the creation of North America's first integrated, localised and environmentally sustainable battery materials park.

"Canada is home to an abundance of nickel, North America's only battery grade cobalt refinery and clean hydroelectric power. The goal is to leverage Electra's existing footprint in order to bridge North America's mineral wealth with a growing domestic EV production base, completing the onshoring of the entire electric vehicle value chain and reducing vulnerabilities on foreign supply,” said Mell.

Electra's strategy is to produce sufficient battery material to supply 1.5-million electric vehicle batteries a year. The company's cobalt sulphate facility is on schedule to be commissioned in 2022.

The cobalt plant will be the first in Electra's four-phase battery materials park project. In the coming years, Electra intends to build further processing capacity for nickel sulphate, recycling of primary and secondary battery scrap materials and precursor production.