Blackstone Minerals Ltd (ASX:BSX, OTCQX:BLSTF) has partnered with Circulor Ltd, a UK-headquartered industry leader in supply chain traceability, to establish a full Nickel and Cathode Precursor (PCAM) traceability system with dynamic carbon dioxide equivalent and environmental, social and governance tracking for its Vietnam Ta Khoa assets, a first in South-East Asia.
End users are now demanding traceability for all products in the electric vehicle and energy storage sectors because of increasing awareness of the impacts associated with nickel and other critical raw materials sourced for battery production.
Blackstone believes its partnership with Circulor will enable the company to demonstrate sustainability compliance from mining through to final product from the Ta Khao Refinery (TKR).
“Leader in ESG innovation”
Sustainable investment is booming, riding a swell of climate-driven market investment. The availability of quality data is rendering companies increasingly transparent and as demand for sustainable investment grows, so will the time and resources dedicated to holding companies responsible for their ESG commitments.
“Blackstone is determined to be a leader in ESG innovation and the company’s partnership with Circulor is at the cutting edge of an industry movement towards increased transparency and traceability of raw material supply chains,” Blackstone CEO Scott Williamson said.
“The end customer will ultimately demand and preferentially consume ethically and responsibility sourced nickel, which we believe the Ta Khoa Project inherently possesses.”
“Beyond tracing supply from the Ta Khoa mine, we are pleased that our partnership with Circulor is also aligned with Trafigura, one of the largest global commodity traders and potential feedstock supplier for the Ta Khoa Refinery.
“Trafigura has also recently announced a collaborative partnership with Circulor and this commitment to tracking sustainability metrics is reflective of Blackstone’s expectation of all potential feedstock suppliers of the Ta Khoa Refinery.”
Blackstone shares have been as much as 7% higher in the first hour to A$0.615, approaching the 12-month high of A$0.625, while the market cap was approximately A$196.3 million before opening.
Circulor Ltd
Circulor is a leading sustainable traceability provider with a global footprint, including the UK, Germany, the US, Singapore and Australia.
The company enables businesses to fully analyse, track and manage their supply chains by providing an enterprise software platform, which creates a reliable chain of custody of materials and attaches sustainability and other ESG data to that flow of materials.
Circulor director of business development Yue Jin Tay said: “We are very pleased to partner with Blackstone on their traceability journey from their development phase through to full operations.
“Building traceability into the development process of a mine and a refinery allows our customers to have traceability-by-design - ready to track the provenance, CO2- equivalent and ESG performance of its products and raw materials from the very first shipment to their downstream customers.”
“As Circulor expands into Asia and Australia, we are excited about the possibilities this partnership brings. With the security of supply of critical minerals gaining increasing focus, helping Blackstone provide transparency for both provenance and ESG performance enables them to become a supplier of choice in the region.
“This also helps them and their global customers meet a range of stakeholder requirements including the EU Battery Regulations, and their financing and investment requirements, among others.”
Partnership highlights
Blackstone and Circulors’ partnership highlights:
- Dynamic ESG metrics - including CO2 intensity, biodiversity impact, water use and energy mix, will be digitised from project samples and made available for potential downstream markets;
- Circulor and Blackstone will work together to demonstrate a reliable chain of custody, using Traceability-as-a-Service (TaaS) technology to provide the company with the ability to communicate the ESG “passport” of its products and operations with downstream customers; and
- Blackstone believes transparency and traceability of the TKR’s vertically integrated supply chain will result in the best commercial outcomes for the company.
Blackstone is developing the district-scale Ta Khao Project in northern Vietnam, where the company has a maiden resource and scoping study for the large-scale Ban Phuc Nickel-Platinum Group Element (PGE) deposit.
Blackstone has focused its efforts on building an integrated upstream and downstream battery metals processing business in Vietnam.
