MELBOURNE, Jan 24 (Reuters) – New Caledonian nickel producer Prony Resources is facing an “alarming” situation amid a slump in metal prices as it waits for the possibility France will offer monetary support for the territory’s nickel sector, a company spokesperson said.
Prony’s struggles highlight the troubles of the French Pacific island territory’s nickel industry, the fourth-biggest producer of nickel ore globally, as prices have plummeted 40% in the past year on surging Indonesian supply.
Billionaire Andrew Forrest is shutting the West Australian nickel mines his private company, Wyloo, bought for $760 million six months ago, bowing to the supply glut that has crashed nickel prices and triggered the loss of around 1000 jobs across WA.
The mines near Kambalda will go into care and maintenance from May 31 amid a steep decline in nickel prices that Australia’s producers have blamed on a glut from China-backed operations in Indonesia. Dr Forrest wants to see a shake-up of the 147-year-old London Metals Exchange, which does not distinguish pricing for nickel material produced under high environmental, social and governance standards in Australia, and what he calls dirty nickel mined from Indonesia.
Demand from the energy transition was supposed to underpin strong prices for nickel and lithium. But the battery minerals slump appears to be entering a new phase.
The most interesting word in BHP’s December quarter operations update can be found on page 14 – “structural”. That’s how the mining giant describes the changes ripping through the nickel sector, and threatening the viability of its Nickel West project in Western Australia.
“The nickel industry is undergoing a number of structural changes and is at a cyclical low in realised pricing,” BHP said. “Nickel West is not immune to these challenges. Operations are being actively optimised, and options are being evaluated to mitigate the impacts of the sharp fall in nickel prices.” BHP also said it would consider whether it needed to take a writedown on the value of the Nickel West asset.
The owner of the Ravensthorpe nickel operation on Western Australia’s south coast says it will suspend mining and cut 30 per cent of its 420-strong workforce. Canada’s First Quantum Minerals has today announced the changes in response to weaker metal prices — the second casualty in as many weeks for WA’s once-booming nickel industry.
Nickel is a key ingredient in stainless steel and lithium-ion batteries, but prices have fallen more than 40 per cent in the past year.
The biggest nickel producer on the ASX says Australia is no longer competitive in the sector and its miners will never attract a so-called green premium for their product.
Nickel Industries managing director Justin Werner issued the dire warning with more than 1000 jobs in the balance in Australia after a plunge in nickel prices and forecasts Indonesia will flood the market with supply for years to come.
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ALUMINIUM producer Alcoa will fully curtail production at its 2.2 t/y alumina refinery in the Kwinana Industrial Area in Western Austria (WA) this year, after 60 years of operation. Matt Reed, chief operations officer and executive VP at Alcoa, said the decision was based on a variety of factors including age, scale, operating costs, current bauxite grades, and current market conditions.
It will see employees at the site phased down from around 800 at the start of 2024 to 250 by Q3, when all alumina production will cease. Alcoa said “certain processes” will continue until about Q3 of 2025, when the number of employees at the site will be further reduced to 50.
Indonesia’s ban on unrefined ore exports is loathed by competing producers and in breach of trade rules, but it is popular at home where international investors have built massive production centres.
They call him the Nickel King. Xiang Guangda, founder and chairman of Chinese giant Tsingshan Holdings, has invested billions of dollars in nickel processing in Indonesia, boosting exports and making it harder for higher-cost Australian miners to compete.
Indonesia’s exports of ferro nickel alloy, which is used to make stainless steel, climbed 38 per cent by volume in the first five months of last year after notching up a 42 per cent increase in the previous two years.
The boss of Andrew Forrest’s private mining company says nickel’s omission from Australia’s expanded critical minerals list is “disappointing” at a time when weak prices for the battery metal are endangering “hundreds” of Australian mining jobs.
Wyloo Resources boss Luca Giacovazzi issued the warning on the same day the federal department of industry warned of more “downward pressure” on nickel prices in 2024 because Indonesian miners were poised to oversupply nickel markets for years to come.
The mining magnate, crowned The Australian Financial Review Business Person of the Year, is recognised for her preparedness to take big bets and the role she’s played in shaping Australia’s economy.
Wesfarmers boss Rob Scott is an unabashed fan of billionaire mining magnate Gina Rinehart and her achievements in business and contributions to philanthropic and community causes. Rinehart, says Scott, is “the driving force behind one of Australia’s largest and most successful private companies, which has created thousands of jobs and billions of dollars of value to the community”.
He adds: “She is ambitious for Australia and our key export industries and is investing to make a difference. “Many people would not appreciate the extent and generosity of Gina’s philanthropic and community support, but it is substantial, and her support of many of our Olympic athletes is remarkable.”
The overhaul of the Albanese government’s critical minerals strategy offers no relief to the besieged nickel industry, which faces further job losses at BHP-owned mines.
BHP said its Nickel West business was not immune to the challenges suffocating the sector where some mines have shut down, and fellow producer Panoramic Resources was tipped into administration this week. Nickel West asset president Jessica Farrell said uncertainty had swept through the Australian nickel industry.
Local billionaires disrupt consolidation as industry positions itself for boom in mineral vital to electric cars
The vast tracts of desert in Western Australia, which have yielded gold, nickel and iron ore to prospectors in decades past, have now become a major battleground for miners of lithium, a key raw material for batteries as the world transitions to greener energy.
A struggle for control of the resource has been ignited this year as multinational companies have clashed with Australian mining billionaires over a series of takeover attempts in two of the remotest parts of the state.
Canada’s rich mineral deposits and generous critical minerals incentives are attracting Australia-based companies, fostering collaboration between the two nations to secure a reliable supply of commodities needed for the energy transition
Over the last five years, Australian mining companies have been flocking to Canada. Between 2018 and 2022, direct Australian investment in Canada’s mining and quarrying industry grew exponentially from $1.7 billion to $9.8 billion, according to Statistics Canada. In just two years from 2020 to 2022, the investment more than doubled. While the figures for 2023 are not yet available, anecdotally, it seems the Australian mining wave in Canada continues to grow.
The group’s pioneering role in the Pilbara helped transform the nation through engagement with Asia. A new book reveals the full story for the first time.
Back in the early 50s, Clem Walton, a taxi driver and amateur prospector, set out with three of his sons, a local station hand and a Geiger Counter on a dry creek bed about 50 kilometres east of the Mt Isa copper mine.
As the party trod warily “the counter went off the scale”, indicating rich uranium reserves. The group pegged two mining leases, named the area Mary Kathleen after Walton’s recently deceased wife, and initiated talks with interested mining companies.
Senior executives at Allkem and Livent say investors are supportive of the $US10 billion ($16 billion) merger between the two mining groups despite increasing concerns that volatility in the lithium price is making the deal, struck in May, increasingly unattractive to the former’s shareholders.
Allkem managing director Martín Pérez de Solay and his Livent counterpart, Paul Graves, are in Australia to meet investors this week before a shareholder vote on the deal on December 19. There have been – so far limited, but growing – calls for the deal to be reconsidered, and it has been described by Jefferies analysts as a “cheap reverse acquisition of Allkem”.
With Glencore set to downsize Mount Isa in 2025, what is the way forward for the North West Minerals Province?
Glencore’s recent announcement that its Mount Isa copper operations and Lady Loretta zinc mine would close in 2025 sent shockwaves through the Queensland mining industry.It signalled the end of two of Australia’s most iconic mining operations, which have supported the world with a sustainable supply of copper, lead, zinc and silver for up to 60 years.
In the wake of Glencore’s announcement, Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk announced a $50 million support package for the Mount Isa region and those affected by the impending closure.
