Yesterday, BHP announced Tesla would buy product from Nickel West and the two would collaborate on other battery initiatives.

Mincor has an offtake deal with Nickel West which will see it buy at least 200,000t per annum of Mincor ore, up to a maximum 600,000tpa until at least 2025.

Mincor's restarted Kambalda nickel operations are due to deliver first production early next year.

Mincor managing director David Southam congratulated BHP on the deal.

"Our nickel concentrate off-take agreement with BHP means that Mincor will be a key participant in this ESG-friendly global EV battery supply chain," he said.

Benchmark Mineral Intelligence estimates that the contract is worth up to 18,000t of nickel per year starting in 2022.

"Concerns over the availability of nickel for the battery industry are well founded, with Benchmark forecasting demand for the mineral to increase from 184,000t in 2021 to in excess of 1.7 million tonnes by 2030," it said.

"To put this into context, the entire global market for nickel in 2020 reached 2.4Mt, so the challenge of scaling suitable battery ready supply is evident, particularly once you factor in competing demand from the growing stainless-steel industry."

Mincor also reported assay results for a massive sulphide hit reported last week from the corridor between the Long and Durkin North mines.

The results confirm the high-grade tenor of the intersection, returning an outstanding intercept of 0.5m at 6.3% nickel, including 0.3m at 8.5% nickel.

"Having assays confirm the high-grade nature of our first nickel intersection gives us great confidence in the enormous potential of the untested space we have called the ‘Golden Mile'," Southam said.

"This intersection is located just 100m from existing underground mining infrastructure, highlighting its strategic importance to the company as our underground drilling program advances."

Mincor reported another intersection 24m down-dip from the high-grade hit.

The estimated width of the new intersection is 0.3m and while portable-XRF analysis has confirmed the high-grade tenor, the company will await assay results to confirm the grade. 

"We are very encouraged by the fertility of the Golden Mile for massive sulphide discoveries and, once we have our down-hole EM infrastructure installed in August, our geological understanding and targeting approach can be further refined as this substantial drilling program unfolds," Southam said.

Mincor shares rose yesterday and jumped 6% today to $1.205, in line with nine-year highs.