High Purity Alumina (submitted photo/Christopher Hopkins)

By Ben Tompkins

Thor Project

One of largest deposits of critical minerals in the world sits in the Northeast

Sep 19, 2025 | 6:00 AM

Canadian Energy Metals (CEM) has discovered a resource of roughly 50 billion tonnes, containing alumina, scandium and vanadium in the Tisdale area.

Drilling was initiated for the ‘Thor project’ back in 2022, and since then, the company has indicated the exact position and amount of the large resource.

“Long term, it offers a source of economic activity for the area, and I would say, because of its scale, it offers economic activity for the rest of Saskatchewan and Canada. This is a major resource that’s been identified. We’re going to be active in continuing exploration activity, and we are proposing to develop a demonstration plant here in Tisdale over the next couple of years,” explained CEM CEO Christopher Hopkins.

“The deposit is very large and appears to be amongst the largest deposits of aluminum in the world, and it’s all in a fairly small area. Our objective is to establish that there is, in fact, a resource here and that it’s economically and technically feasible to develop. It’s not, however, our ambition to build a large mine and processing complex, as that’s not within our abilities, and we would expect a major to come and do that for us.”

According to Hopkins, there is enough resource in the ground in the roughly 200 square mile area, drilled by the company north of Tisdale, to mine for more than 2,000 years at 50 thousand tonnes per day.

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(Submitted photo/Christopher Hopkins)

All of that represents an amount approximately equal to 40 per cent of the known world’s supply.

“In terms of the metal, aluminum is the most sought-after major mineral, certainly in the context of the transition from hydrocarbons to electric use. The efficiencies that you need require light weight and aluminum is a lightweight metal, so it’s highly sought after. Most of the world’s aluminum comes from China, but that’s not a secure supply chain anymore,” he added.

“Canada is a major producer of aluminum, but to the extent of about three to four percent of global consumption, so it’s not really a large producer in that context. With this resource, and the development of this resource, Canada could stand as a major producer in global terms, but that’s not up to us; that’ll hopefully evolve from this resource.”

Another advantage of this resource, which is an alternative to bauxite, is the purity of alumina. Typically, alumina is recovered from bauxite, a process that is not as environmentally friendly.

CEM, however, working with a global engineering firm and with its pilot facility at the Saskatchewan Research Council (SRC), is recovering very high purity alumina (up to 99.991 per cent).

“It’s industry, and industry has impacts, so we would not say there are no impacts; however, this is a very clean industry, and it’s being designed on the principles of low carbon and high ESG (environmental, social, and governance) approach. In the context of aluminum, this would be the greenest aluminum on Earth available,” Hopkins concluded.

CEM said the metals it targeted are essential to Canada’s advancement in aerospace, defence, and sustainable energy.

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Ben.Tompkins@pattisonmedia.com

On X @BenTompkins_8