Jervois has secured government funding in Europe and the USA over the past few days. 

Jervois Global announced last week that its 100%-owned subsidiary, Jervois Finland, had been awarded US$13M in reimbursable cash funding for its potential expansion of cobalt refining capacity at the Kokkola Industrial Park from Business Finland, a Finnish State development body, subject to meeting certain conditions.

Jervois expects the grant will allow it to evaluate restarting work on the BFS for a cobalt refinery expansion at Kokkola. That work was paused in April 2023 in favour of a BFS for a new cobalt refinery located in the USA.

Just last week, it was reported that Jervois Global’s subsidiary, Jervois Mining USA, received US$15M from the United States Department of Defense (DoD) to continue developing its ICO project. 

Approved by the US Office of the Assistant Secretary for Industrial Base Policy (OASD(IBP)) in June 2023, funds from the DoD will be used to complete Jervois’ expansion drilling program for the ICO mine and compile a BFS for a planned cobalt refinery in the USA. The drilling program is set to increase the ICO’s cobalt resources and upgrade the historical mineral resources of the adjacent Sunrise deposit to current geological standards. The proposed refinery has a planned production capacity of 6ktpy cobalt sulphate.

Both cases serve to highlight government interest in ensuring that viable, near-term project’s in their jurisdictions are supported and financed, as the race to build local, sustainable battery material supply chains intensifies.