JV Video: Scandium Canada engages locals in rare earth project, CEO says

Scandium Canada (TSXV: SCD; OTCQB: SCDCF) has signed a pre-development agreement with a First Nation as the Crater Lake scandium rare earths project gathers speed in northern Quebec, CEO Guy Bourassa said in an interview.

“It’s very important to have acceptability of your project and incorporate the development with the impacted First Nations,” Bourassa told The Northern Miner’s western editor, Henry Lazenby, during the Energy Transition Metals Summit in Washington, D.C. late last month.

The company reached agreement in April with the Naskapi Nation of Kawawachikamach that allows it to work the community’s lands until a feasibility study has been published.

The company’s project is the only known primary source of scandium in North America as companies try to establish a supply chain that excludes China, Bourassa explained. Located 200 km east of Schefferville beside the Newfoundland border, the Crater Lake project holds 28 million tonnes of indicated and inferred resources, supporting a 25-year mine life. A 2022 preliminary economic assessment valued the project at $1.7 billion.

“The challenge of opening a new market for aluminium alloys is what made me join,” Bourassa, who took the reins in January, said during the chat at the conference.

Key Crater Lake initiatives this summer include completing a 500-kg metallurgical pilot process study at SGS Lakefield in Ontario, geotechnical drilling and environmental assessments.

The Northern Miner Group event ran in coordination with Precious Metals Summit Conferences.

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Joint venture videos are paid-for content in arrangement with The Northern Miner.