When miners first struck nickel in Western Australia’s dusty outback in the late 1960s, it kickstarted a rollercoaster ride that brought the likes of Harold Holt and Andrew Forrest to town. So exciting was the revelation of nickel in Kambalda, 60 kilometres south of Kalgoorlie, the prime minister came to town to join the party.
“It is an important national asset,” Mr Holt declared from the Goldfields mine site in 1967.Today it is seen as not only important but critical – due to its use in the batteries needed for the global energy transition.Two years ago, the price of nickel reached a dizzying height of around $76,000 (US$50,000) per tonne.
Just last year, billionaire Andrew ‘Twiggy’ Forrest was spotted drinking beers at Kambalda’s local pub, the aptly named Nickel Bar, after his company Wyloo took over a major nickel producer in the region. “Wyloo has targeted nickel sulphides as they are the greenest and cheapest option for battery manufacturing,” Mr Forrest said at the time.
“We are going to give the market a choice between clean nickel and dirty nickel.” But for all the highs of this volatile commodity, the past 12 months have been a stomach-turning speed slide. The price is now sitting around $24,300 ($US16,000) per tonne, and five WA nickel producers across the state have announced they are either scaling back operations or going into care and maintenance. Thousands of jobs are on the line.
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