An agreement between Vale Base Metals and BluestOne has been made to repurpose slag and other waste products from Brazilian mine, Onça Puma.

The 10-year agreement will see roughly 50,000 tonnes of refinery slag be transformed into high-quality, high-performance products and low-carbon solutions for sectors including the automotive industry, technical applications, and fertilisers.

Under the terms of the agreement, both companies also agree to work together to explore additional circular economy opportunities for treatment and repurposing further waste products from Onça Puma as well as other Vale Base Metals operations globally.

This includes potentially bolstering BluestOne's production of recycled nickel recovered from waste products around the world.

BluestOne will commence construction within two years of a plant near Onça Puma to process slag products into a solution to enhance carbon-efficient mineral fertilizers with broad use in the agricultural sector.

Deshnee Naidoo, CEO of Vale Base Metals, said: “This MOU and scalability of BluestOne's technology supports our ambition to capture value from what have historically been waste streams while reducing our legacy environmental footprint as part of a wider approach to circular mining."

BluestOne's Co-Founder, Marcelo Carratú, was quoted: “This long-term partnership with Vale Base Metals fills us with pride as it represents a significant milestone to globally advance our mission in further developing new green mining solutions and to promote biodiversity preservation, education and environmental restoration initiatives.”