Canada Nickel Completes In Situ Carbon Sequestration Pilot

The company says ~12t of injected CO₂ remains dissolved at depth, with no surface leakage detected.

The pilot at its flagship Crawford Nickel Project, near Timmins, Ontario, Canada, was a collaboration with the Canada Nickel Company and the Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy team of the U.S. Department of Energy, led by Dr. Estibalitz Ukar, Research Associate Professor at the University of Texas at Austin.

Mark Selby, CEO of Canada Nickel, says 'The direct injection approach, which is implemented prior to mining, has the potential to lower future mining costs by pre-conditioning and fracturing the rock mass, making it less energy intensive to blast and process during crushing and grinding. The results also leverage portions of ultramafic deposits that lack economically recoverable minerals, turning them into valuable assets for environmental carbon removal.'

>> In Other News: Google's Illinois Deal Just Gave CCS Its First Real Market

Ukar adds, 'The Crawford in situ mineralisation field test shows that carbon capture doesn't have to be an add-on to mining - it can be built in from the very beginning. What we demonstrated at Crawford represents more than an experiment at a single site, it's a scaleable model for how mining can contribute to global decarbonisation. In situ mineralisation allows us to permanently store CO₂ while simultaneously reducing mining energy requirements, creating both environmental and economic value.'

After nearly two years of planning, laboratory experiments and deployment of an extensive monitoring network, the CO₂ injection field test was conducted between mid-November and mid-December 2025. Canada Nickel reports that all data collected so far indicates that the field test proceeded as planned and was a success, with ~12t of injected CO₂ remained dissolved at depth, with no surface leakage detected.

In the coming months, the company plans to continue monitoring of seismicity, water chemistry through regular sampling and potential CO₂ gas leakage. It says that monitoring wells will be re-entered and sampled in the spring, following several months of reaction, and prior to ground thaw, to ensure access to the site. The area is also being monitored using InSAR satellite measurements.