Is Western Australia’s once-booming nickel industry dead or just a sleeping giant? Thousands of job losses this year marked the bleakest period in the local industry’s history, which dates back to the 1960s.
In those days, the discovery of nickel literally put the Goldfields town of Kambalda on the map, leading to the development of the country’s first nickel mine while the Vietnam War drove demand for this key ingredient of stainless steel.
Today, cheaper nickel out of Indonesia has fundamentally changed the game, flooding global markets and resulting in at least 10 mine closures across WA — from the Savannah mine in the Kimberley to the Ravensthorpe mine on the south coast.
For the rest of this article: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-12-02/wa-nickel-industry-has-collapsed-but-eye-on-future/104629328