TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – Aim- and TSX-listed Horizonte Minerals on Thursday reported that it had filed the social environmental impact assessment (SEIA) with the Pará State Environmental Agency (SEMA), in Brazil, for its flagship Araguaia nickel project, billing the move as a significant derisking step for the project.

Located south of the Carajas mining district in Pará State, northern Brazil, Horizonte hoped to receive the full SEIA approval for the Araguaia project by the end of the year.

While Horizonte would be busy progressing the project toward the feasibility stage during the second half of the year, the SEMA would now analyse the SEIA and host a public hearing in the third quarter, where the project would be presented to local communities, rural landowners and authorities in the municipality of Conceição do Araguaia.

After the public hearing, Horizonte was confident that the State Environmental Council would issue a three-year preliminary licence (LP) that would prove that the project was environmentally and socially acceptable. The LP was the first stage in a three-stage environmental licensing process to develop a mine in the country.

“The completion and filing of the SEIA for Araguaia marks a significant derisking step for the project, as we work with local stakeholders, communities and government agencies towards the development of the next major nickel mine in Brazil. The SEIA has been an important phase of work covering the environmental and social base line data collection over the last two years,” Horizonte Minerals CEO Jeremy Martin said.

The project developer planned to start production in 2017. A prefeasibility study (PFS), completed in March, calculated that the $582-million project would produce stainless-steel making nickel at a rate of 15 000 t/y. The PFS generated a post-tax net present value of $519-million and an internal rate of return of 20%, based on a nickel price of $19 000/t.

London-based market analysts at SP Angel in a note to clients said securing the LP would be another step forward towards developing the Araguaia project.

The analysts noted that the project was not in an area of primary rainforest with the land mainly used for cattle. There were also no indigenous communities in the area, with the nearest group 200 km away.