Wheaton Precious Metals enters cobalt streaming agreement for Voisey's Bay mine

The worlds largest pure precials metals streaming company has added another significant streaming deal into its portfolio.

Wheaton Precious Metals has announced in a statement this week that it has acquired an amount of finished cobalt from Vale S.A.’s Voisey’s Bay mine in Newfoundland.

Under the agreement, Wheaton will pay Bale an upfront cash consideration of $390 million upon closing of the cobalt stream.

Vale has also entered into a separate streaming agreement with Cobalt 27 Capital Corp. Together, both Wheaton and Cobalt 27 will provide Vale an aggregate of US$690 million in funding for the combined purchase of cobalt equal to 75% of Voisey's Bay cobalt production effective January 1, 2021.

This, Vale notes, will unlocks its Voisey’s Bay Mine Expansion.

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The Voisey’s Bay mine, located on the north coast of Labrador, is a concentrator and an open pit mine that is undergoing a transition from open pit to underground mining in 2021.

Once in operation, underground mining is expected to extend the life of the Voisey's Bay operation until at least 2034. At peak production, the underground mines are expected to produce about 45,000 tonnes per year of nickel-in-concentrate which will be shipped to Vale's processing facility in Long Harbour, Newfoundland for further processing into finished nickel.

Voisey’s Bay mine, located in Labrador, Canada, has been in production since 2005 and has produced over 600 kt of nickel, 400 kt of copper concentrate, and 12 kt of cobalt.