Canada Nickel Company has completed an in-situ carbon sequestration pilot study at its Crawford Nickel Project near Timmins, Ontario. The project targets large-scale nickel production, a critical input for stainless steel and high-nickel lithium-ion battery chemistries used in electric vehicles (EVs).
Location of drillholes and stations for the Carbon sequestration test at Crawford. (CNW Group/Canada Nickel Company Inc.)
The pilot was conducted in collaboration with a US Department of Energy Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-E) funded research team led by Dr. Estibalitz Ukar of the University of Texas at Austin.
The field test evaluated the direct injection of CO₂-saturated water into ultramafic rock formations prior to mining. The approach is designed to permanently mineralize and store carbon dioxide underground while potentially reducing future mining energy requirements through pre-conditioning and fracturing of the rock mass.
CO₂ injection trials were conducted between mid-November and mid-December 2025. Approximately 12 tonnes of CO₂ were injected into a single well drilled to a depth of 396 meters, with the injection interval established between 350 and 396 meters.
Monitoring data indicate that the injected CO₂ remained dissolved at depth, with no surface leakage detected during the test period.
The pilot incorporated an injection well, a water supply well, four groundwater monitoring wells, 12 surface seismic monitoring stations, and three seismic monitoring boreholes. Seismicity and potential gas migration were continuously monitored. No significant seismic events (M>1) were detected, and no CO₂ was observed at monitoring wells or at surface.
Preliminary chemical analyses indicate that the CO₂-enriched water had not reached monitoring wells at the time of reporting, consistent with reactive transport modeling predictions.
Ongoing monitoring will include seismic measurements, groundwater sampling, and satellite-based InSAR analysis to assess subsurface fluid movement and reaction processes. Monitoring wells will be re-entered and sampled in the spring following several months of reaction time.
The in-situ mineralization test is independent of Canada Nickel’s In-Process Tailings (IPT) Carbonation and NetCarb programs, which focus on CO₂ storage in waste rock and tailings. Results from the study are intended to inform future carbon sequestration strategies at the site and assess the potential integration of carbon storage into nickel mining operations.
Filed Under: Batteries, Technology News