U.S.-backed Orion Critical Mineral Consortium has emerged as the reported preferred partner for a strategic equity investment in Lifezone Metals’ Kabanga nickel project in northwestern Tanzania. The selection advances a financing process for the undeveloped deposit, but it does not yet constitute a signed acquisition or a transfer of ownership.
Lifezone chief executive Chris Showalter said the company had chosen a preferred partner from several contenders after a competitive process managed by Standard Chartered. He did not publicly identify that investor. Reports naming Orion said negotiations were in their concluding stage, while neither party had announced a formal agreement or financial terms.
The undisclosed variables are material. No proposed stake, valuation, governance rights, offtake allocation or cash commitment has been published. Preferred-bidder status can lead to exclusivity and definitive documents, but due diligence, negotiations and approvals may still alter the structure or prevent completion.
Lifezone estimates that the current staged development of Kabanga will require about USD 940 million. The mine is designed to produce roughly 350,000 tonnes of nickel concentrate annually, containing nickel together with copper and cobalt. A later refinery phase would aim to convert concentrate into higher-value metal sulphates.
The existing ownership structure gives the prospective investment added complexity. Lifezone owns all of Kabanga Nickel Limited, which in turn holds 84% of the Tanzanian operating company, Tembo Nickel Corporation. Tanzania’s government retains the remaining 16%, so a new investor must fit within both the corporate chain and the state partnership.
The project’s 2025 feasibility work reported 52.2 million tonnes of proven and probable reserves grading 1.98% nickel, with an 18-year mine life and average annual output of about 50,100 tonnes of nickel. Those estimates support the asset’s strategic appeal, but they remain development assumptions rather than current production.
Lifezone has also engaged Société Générale to arrange project debt and has placed approximately USD 854 million of procurement packages into the market. Its final investment decision is now targeted for the first quarter of 2027 after slower negotiations over amendments to the framework agreement with Tanzania. Equity selection is therefore only one part of a broader financing and government process.
For Orion CMC, a transaction could become one of its first major critical-minerals investments and deepen U.S.-linked access to nickel outside the dominant Indonesian supply chain. The decisive evidence will be a definitive agreement, disclosed economics, alignment with Tanzania, committed debt and a final investment decision. Until then, Orion is a preferred prospective investor, not an owner of Kabanga.
