World Bank lowers nickel price projection, Terrafame sticks to optimistic forecast (Ujtkset News – Feburary 23, 2016)

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The state-owned company Terrafame, which now owns and operates Talvivaara’s mining operations in Sotkamo, eastern Finland, says it’s sticking to optimistic price forecasts for its business and financial planning. The World Bank however, has forecast a 15-percent drop in market prices for nickel, one of the mine’s main outputs.

Shortly after it acquired the mining operation Talvivaara last August, the state-owned company Terrafame said that it would be basing its business plans on “conservative nickel price forecasts” issued by the World Bank.

“Our business plan is based on it [nickel prices] rising to about 16,000 dollars [per ton] by 2020, which it the World Bank’s forecast. If we stick to this framework, then we will be able to achieve a positive cash flow by the end of 2017 into 2018,” Terrafame board chair Lauri Ratia said in mid-August.

Last summer the World Bank projected that in 2020 nickel would fetch a price of 16,125 dollars per ton. However in its latest forecast issued in January, the international institution estimated that the price in 2020 would be 13,600 dollars per ton. The difference in price is 2,500 dollars or 15 percent lower than its previous forecast.

“We considered other forecasts”

Speaking on Yle’s Aamu-tv breakfast programme last Friday, Lauri Ratia said that the mining operation was still targeting a positive cash flow by 2017 – 2018, in spite of the World Bank’s revised forecast.

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