Timmins mine developer Canada Nickel will be driving test pile for its proposed processing plants at the Crawford Project as front-end engineering has commenced.

The company said this year’s activities on tap for Crawford include driving 24 test piles for the processing plant and primary crusher areas, which will be fed into the design of the plant foundations.

Ausenco Engineering will oversee the front-end engineering design, which is a first-step, basic engineering design approach to get a handle of project expenses in planning a project.

This engineering work will be supplemented by data collected during a winter geotechnical program, which is currently nearing completion.

In a news release, the company said this engineering step will be completed by August.

Located 40 kilometres north of Timmins, Canada Nickel is promoting Crawford as one of the world’s largest future nickel mines. The projected operating life of the proposed open-pit mine is 41 years.

“As we continue to successfully advance Crawford financing and permitting activities,” said Canada Nickel CEO Mark Selby in a news release, “we are confidently moving into this next phase of project development which maintains our targets of a mid-2025 construction decision and first production by year-end 2027 by sufficiently advancing engineering on a number of fronts.”