Glencore's 23-machine battery fleet at Onaping Depth ties nickel supply to an all-electric mine plan

Glencore has hit a shaft development milestone at Onaping Depth, opening a nickel and copper orebody at the Craig mine in Sudbury, Ontario that had never been worked before. The fleet assigned to cut it does not burn diesel: 23 battery-electric machines ordered from Epiroc. Nickel feeds battery cathodes and copper feeds the wiring and current-carrying parts around them, which puts this orebody on both ends of the same chain.

Core facts

The event at the Craig mine marked shaft development progress at Onaping Depth, and the practical result is access to a nickel and copper zone for the first time. Ontario Premier Doug Ford attended alongside political, Indigenous, industry and community leaders, according to Electrek. Shaft work is the gating item on any deep hard-rock project, because until the hoisting and access infrastructure lands at depth, an orebody remains a resource statement rather than a source of tonnes.

The capital figure attached to the project is USD 2 billion, and Glencore Canada links that spend to a long-term presence in the region, Electrek reported. The number is worth separating from the operating decision it funds. A USD 2 billion outlay buys shaft, access and infrastructure; the fleet choice made on top of it determines the energy profile the mine carries for the rest of its life.

That fleet choice is 23 machines from Epiroc. Among them sit Minetruck MT42 Battery underground haul trucks rated to carry 42 tonnes. The rating is the detail that distinguishes production duty from a trial: a 42-tonne battery haul truck is doing the same job a diesel truck of that class would do, on the same ramps, with the same cycle expectations. Ordering 23 of them commits an operator to that duty across a fleet rather than a single unit.

Glencore Canada COO Peter Xavier put the case in energy terms rather than emissions terms. "Eliminating diesel emissions means less ventilation and cooling requirements, which are traditionally among the largest energy demands in underground mining," he said. Diesel engines underground force an operator to move and condition large volumes of air; removing the engines removes the reason for much of that airflow.

Once the mine is fully operational it will support more than 400 permanent jobs and extend nickel production in the Sudbury Basin beyond 2040. Both figures are forward statements tied to full operation, not current headcount or current output. The production horizon matters more than the job number for anyone modelling nickel units, because it fixes a Canadian supply source in the balance well past the current decade.

Market and policy context

Underground hard-rock mining has long treated diesel as the default prime mover and ventilation as the unavoidable cost of going deeper. Xavier's framing turns ventilation and cooling from a background utility into the target, naming them as traditionally among the largest energy demands in underground mining. On that logic, battery haulage is a subtraction rather than an addition: the machine changes, and a load the mine would otherwise carry every operating hour comes off the plan.

What separates Onaping Depth from earlier electrification announcements is the pairing of fleet count with mine life. Twenty-three machines are specified for a project carrying a USD 2 billion investment figure and a stated production horizon beyond 2040. Equipment trials are sized to prove a machine; procurement at that count is sized to run an orebody. The MT42 Battery trucks at 42 tonnes are the clearest expression of that difference, because the duty rating has to hold across the haulage cycle for the fleet economics to work at all.

The supply-side backdrop is where the story stops being about one mine. The EU is heavily dependent on imports of raw materials and is failing to catch up with investments globally, according to CleanTechnica. The shortfall named there is in investment pace, not in what sits underground, and import dependence is presented as the consequence. Set that description beside a nickel and copper project in Ontario carrying a USD 2 billion figure and an output horizon beyond 2040, and the question is where units originate rather than whether they are wanted.

The demand pull is being argued in dispatch terms elsewhere. David Leitch contends that a second wave of big batteries will force some coal generators to close, RenewEconomy reported. The qualifier in that argument is doing real work: some generators, not the fleet, and the claim concerns retirement decisions driven by storage build-out rather than a regulatory phase-out. It is an argument advanced by a named analyst, and it belongs in the frame as a stated view rather than a settled schedule.

Stakeholder impacts

Who wins

Epiroc holds the order for the 23 battery-electric machines going into Onaping Depth, including the Minetruck MT42 Battery haul trucks rated at 42 tonnes. For an equipment supplier, fleet size and duty rating together carry more commercial weight than either alone. A 42-tonne battery truck specified into a mine with production extending beyond 2040 becomes a reference installation with a service and parts tail longer than most procurement cycles. Every subsequent deep-mine tender that asks whether battery haulage holds up at production duty now has an operating fleet to point at rather than a specification sheet.

The Sudbury Basin workforce is the second beneficiary with a number attached. More than 400 permanent jobs are tied to the mine at full operation, alongside nickel production in the basin running beyond 2040. Those positions sit on top of a stated USD 2 billion commitment that Glencore Canada describes as supporting a long-term presence in the region. The distinction between a capital position and an operating budget matters for durability: the jobs are attached to infrastructure already being built at depth, evidenced by the shaft progress marked at the Craig mine.

Who loses

Coal generators are the named exposure in the power market. Leitch's argument is that a second wave of big batteries will force some of them to close. The exposure is conditional on build-out volume, and the condition is testable: if the storage wave he describes arrives more slowly, the retirement pressure does not land on the schedule implied by his argument. Nothing in the argument as reported puts a date or a capacity figure on the wave, which is precisely why the observable to track is installed storage rather than announced storage.

Diesel-dependent ventilation is the quieter casualty, and it is a cost line rather than a company. Xavier identifies ventilation and cooling as traditionally among the largest energy demands in underground mining. Each diesel machine withdrawn reduces the airflow and conditioning an operator has to buy and run, and an order covering 23 machines removes that requirement at fleet scale rather than machine by machine. The saving is structural: airflow sized for a diesel fleet has to be provided for the operating life of the mine, so the reduction persists for as long as the orebody produces.

Who is publicly silent but materially exposed

EU raw material buyers are exposed without being party to any of this. The EU's own position is that it depends heavily on imports of raw materials and is not keeping pace with investments globally. Against that position, the nickel and copper reached for the first time at the Craig mine will be produced in Ontario, on a Canadian capital base described at USD 2 billion, with output stated to run beyond 2040. Import dependence is not a forecast in that framing; it is the stated current condition, and the investment gap named alongside it is what would have to close for the condition to change.

Cross-topic implications

The link worth naming runs from grid dispatch to the mine face. Leitch's argument that a second wave of big batteries closes some coal generators describes displacement paid for in cells, and cells require nickel and copper of the type Onaping Depth has just reached. Direction is what the sourced material supports here, not magnitude: more storage on the grid means more demand for these two metals, and the newest source of them in the Sudbury Basin is being mined by 23 battery machines rather than diesel ones.

Forward-looking signals

The first test at Onaping Depth is delivery against its own stated outcomes: more than 400 permanent jobs and Sudbury Basin nickel production extending beyond 2040 once the mine reaches full operation. Both are conditioned on full operation, which the shaft progress at the Craig mine advances but does not complete.

The second test is equipment performance at rated duty. The MT42 Battery trucks are specified to carry 42 tonnes, and the fleet case rests on that rating holding across production cycles rather than demonstration runs. If it holds across 23 machines, Xavier's ventilation and cooling argument converts from a stated design rationale into a measured operating cost reduction.

The third test sits outside Canada. The EU has said it is failing to catch up with investments globally, and that assessment changes only when comparable capital commitments appear on its side of the ledger. A USD 2 billion nickel and copper project with a production horizon beyond 2040 is the scale against which any such comparison would be drawn.

In the power market, Leitch's argument supplies its own falsification: coal closures attributed to a second wave of big batteries either occur or they do not.