With the majority of Boadicea Resources’s landholdings in the Fraser Range, a province, likened to Canada’s Thompson nickel belt, today’s column by resources reporter Barry Fitzgerald in Resources Rising Stars shines the spotlight very heavily on the growth of nickel demand.

There is no doubt, the demand for nickel will far outweigh how much is being mined. This makes it even more imperative for exploration companies, like Boadicea Resources to commit to their journey of making a new nickel find in the Fraser Range.

Already this area is playing host to three major discoveries with only one in production to date. Nova-Bollinger was a mine maker for IGO, while Silver Knight is proving up to be a bonanza find for Mark Creasy and Legend Mining continues to issue announcements for its Mawson Project that bring ongoing excitement to the market.

Nestled near these discoveries and further afield in the Fraser Range are the 11 Boadicea tenements.

The future for nickel is anything but grey. Read an extract from the report by Barry Fitzgerald below or the full report following this link: Barry Fitzgerald in Resources Rising Stars

Congratulations to Elon Musk for steering Tesla to its fourth quarterly profit in a row, positioning it for inclusion in the Standard & Poor’s 500 index with all the market-weighting implications that brings.

And thanks to our own Sam Riggall, CEO of the ASX-listed Clean TeQ Holdings (CLQ), for forwarding on some interesting nickel comments Musk made during his overnight earnings call.

Asked what was Tesla’s biggest constraint at the moment, Musk responded: “It’s all about nickel.’’

He then went on to make a plea to the miners of the world to get cracking. The EV revolution needs more of the metal because it is nickel-dense battery chemistries that provide the long-range and load capacity that will make EV’s victory over internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles complete.

“I’d just like to emphasise, any mining companies out there, please mine more nickel, OK. Wherever you are in the world, please mine more nickel. And don’t wait for nickel to go back to some long high point that you experienced some five years ago or whatever.

“Go for efficient, you know, environmentally friendly, nickel mining at high volume. Tesla will give you a giant contract for a long period of time if you mine nickel efficiently and in an environmentally friendly way. So, hopefully this message goes out to all mining companies. Please get nickel.”

Musk’s call for more nickel in the pipeline followed on from a recent warning from Riggall to the automakers that co-operation with the miners was required to secure the materials needed for the EV revolution. “Something more than procurement 101 is required,” Riggall said.

It is all warming stuff for the band of Aussie miners that are either producing nickel or who are working towards doing so, including Clean TeQ, where another big thinking guy, Robert Friedland, is co-chairman with a 12.9% shareholding.

The need to work outside of procurement 101 could well provide the solution to Clean TeQ’s big need – the $US1.49 billion needed to develop its Sunrise nickel-cobalt-scandium project near tiny Fifield in central New South Wales.

The capex estimate is being redone at the moment and a new figure is expected to be announced in an updated DFS around September. While the capex will be higher, the company is confident the update will also confirm first quartile nickel production costs after by-products.

The company has also previously flagged it had Macquarie Capital on the job to run a “partnering process” in which a buyer will be sought for an interest of up to 50% in Sunrise, in combination with a long-term offtake arrangement.

Clean TeQ last traded at 20c for a market cap of $150m. That’s a fraction of where it was a few years ago when interest in the role of nickel (and cobalt) in the EV revolution was running hot.

But as Musk’s comments suggests, the panic around just where the additional nickel required – on top of steady growth in demand from its current mainstay use in stainless steel – is going to come from is starting to build. It is presumed he has Friedland’s number.

There is a rub off in all that on expectations around future nickel prices as a movement to higher levels is required to induce major new supply sources like Sunrise.

A recent commodities price deck update by UBS captured some of that, with the firm increasing nickel price expectations by more than 10% for 2020.

“Beyond 2020 the EV thematic will continue to be supportive for nickel demand. The nickel price has spent most of the past 5 years below an incentive price for new supply, particularly for battery grade nickel. This is why we forecast asymmetric price upside in 2022 (to $US8/lb from $US5.94/lb currently).