Minnesota nickel to be processed in North Dakota
Last week, Talon Metals announced it has secured a former coal mine site in western North Dakota for processing nickel from its proposed project. It’s a victory for North Dakota’s economy given the high-paying, value-added jobs entailed by processing facilities.
The agreement will allow Talon Metals to secure 256 acres of the former coal mine near Beulah, North Dakota, and a 7-mile rail spur. The nickel ore would come from an underground mine in central Minnesota, near Tamarack, for extraction of nickel, copper, and iron ore. Talon Metals signed an agreement in 2022 to sell 165 million pounds of its nickel for six years to Tesla, the electric vehicle company.
The processing facility and the proposed mine are approximately 475 miles apart, according to the press release, and will be connected by rail. In 2022, when Talon announced its intention to process in North Dakota rather than Minnesota, it noted that removing the facilities from the mine site “significantly reduces land disturbance and the scope of environmental review and permitting.”
The Tamarack project to mine the ore is still undergoing state permitting and the DNR’s latest document, from April 10, 2025, states that “this is the third iteration of the project proposal review cycle.” The project’s documentation may be found here.
The processing site is supported by a $114.8 million grant from the Department of Energy, awarded in 2023 from $2.8 billion in funds for processing, battery manufacturing, and recycling from the Biden-era Infrastructure Law.
Talon called the processing facility a “first-of-its-kind opportunity for collaboration across energy, mining and critical mineral industries, transforming a legacy coal mine site into critical minerals processing to support the nation’s national security and industrial revitalization priorities.”
Permitting will be ongoing through 2025 and 2026, with the start of construction targeted for 2027. Beulah Mayor Sean Cheatley said of the processing project: “It’s good for Beulah. It’s good for Hazen. It’s good for Mercer County. It’s good for the whole nation.”