Noble Mineral Exploration sees a potential windfall in selling carbon credits from its gold and nickel property near Timmins.
The Toronto junior miner commissioned Mikro-Tek, a local forestry-based carbon project developer, to do an evaluation of carbon credits on its very bushy 60,701-hectare Project 81 property, next to the Kidd Creek mine complex.
Noble announced Sept. 10 that Mikro-Tek's preliminary evaluation shows the property's carbon dioxide capture and storage potential is in excess of 500,000 tonnes per year for more than 30 years.
In a news release, Noble president Vance White said with carbon credits selling at Europe at US $10 per tonne, the gross revenue “would be in order of $5 million per year for the next 30 years, with an operating cost of approximately $500,000 per year.
“In other words, the business model is really a royalty stream – just by managing the trees to optimize the carbon sequestration potential of the forest.”
Mikro-Tek has been retained to do a full feasibility study.
Noble said it has one of the largest freehold land packages in Ontario, if not Canada, to which all the surface, mineral and timber rights belong to the company.
Noble holds more than 72,000 hectares of property in Timmins, Iroquois Falls and Smooth Rock Falls.