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Nickel Laterites

OPINION: Mining companies need to look at new ways to reduce biodiversity impacts – by Tom Drabble (Benchmark Minerals.com – May 22, 2023)

https://source.benchmarkminerals.com/

Critical mineral deposits crucial to the clean energy transition can be found across the globe. As mining companies cannot control where geological deposits form, they are forced to tackle whatever challenges are present in the location of which they are found. One of the largest challenges within the environmental “E” of ESG is how to prevent biodiversity loss due to company operations.

It is crucial that biodiversity is considered and appropriately monitored at all stages, from acquisition through to mine closure and rehabilitation. Strategies for biodiversity management of a mine site should begin with an environmental impact assessment and mitigation strategies and targets set.

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Report: EV battery making riddled with rights violations, environmental threats – by Subel Rai Bhandari (Radio Free Asia – May 16, 2023)

https://www.rfa.org/english/

Companies including Panasonic, Tesla, and Toyota should check their supply chain, rights group says.

Human rights violations and environmental abuses were found in two nickel supply chains in the Philippines and Indonesia, home to more than half of the world’s supplies. They provide batteries to companies including Panasonic, Tesla, and Toyota, said a report released Tuesday by a rights research group.

The lack of transparency in electric vehicle battery supply chains means end-user companies must be held responsible, as they can easily distance themselves from the lower-level abuses and avoid addressing associated risks, the London-based Business & Human Rights Resource Centre (BHRRC) said in its report “Powering Electric Vehicles.”

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Future of Canada’s mining industry hangs on who gets U.S. subsidies, with nickel the ‘litmus test’ – by Gabriel Friedman (Financial Post – May 17, 2023)

https://financialpost.com/

Execs worry a quirk in the Inflation Reduction Act could allow nickel powerhouse Indonesia to qualify for tax incentives, making it almost impossible for North American companies to compete

Last month, Republican congressman Pete Stauber of Minnesota penned a pointed letter to United States Trade Representative Katherine Tai before she embarked on a trip to Asia.

“I write to express concern over recent comments by Indonesian government officials that the country is seeking to enter a limited free trade agreement with the U.S., to increase trade of critical minerals needed for EV batteries and other renewable technologies,” Stauber said in the letter, dated April 14.

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LME Fights to Regain Trust After Last Year’s Nickel Crisis (Bloomberg News – May 16, 2023)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

(Bloomberg) — The embattled London Metal Exchange is still trying to rebuild faith in its nickel contract after an epic short squeeze last year, according to Chief Executive Officer Matthew Chamberlain.

The crisis last March, when the metal used in stainless steel and electric vehicle batteries spiked 250% in little more than 24 hours, brought the venerable LME to the brink of collapse. It raised doubts about the exchange’s viability as the world’s benchmark pricing mechanism for nickel and was followed by plunging trading volumes and frequent wild price swings.

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To Meet EV Demand, Industry Turns to Technology Long Deemed Hazardous (Japan News/Washington Post – May 12, 2023)

https://japannews.yomiuri.co.jp/

OBIRA ISLAND, Indonesia – On a remote island close to where the Pacific meets the Indian Ocean sits one of the first refineries built specifically to support the world’s transition away from fossil fuels. Rocks unearthed here contain traces of nickel, a key ingredient in electric vehicle batteries. Extracting it, refining it and readying it for export is a gargantuan task.

More than $1 billion has been sunk into the processing facility, the first in Indonesia to use an acid-leaching technology to convert low-grade laterite nickel ore – which the country has in abundance – into a higher-grade material suitable for batteries. Foreign investors and lenders cite the project as evidence of their commitment to fighting climate change.

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The Nickel Pickle: Everyone wants Indonesia’s nickel. But Xiang Guangda was there first. – by Eliot Chen (The Wire China – May 7, 2023)

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The floodlights at Indonesia Morowali Industrial Park stay on throughout the night. Around the clock, more than 40,000 workers operate the 8,000 acre site, which just ten years ago was nothing but dense rainforest on Sulawesi, Indonesia’s fourth largest island. Today, the sprawling park, which many refer to simply as “IMIP,” is home to a port, an airport, dormitories for Chinese workers, a four-star hotel and three mosques.

At its core, however, IMIP exists to smelt and refine at enormous scale a single mineral: nickel. Long a key ingredient in stainless steel, nickel is increasingly wanted for the production of lithium ion batteries for electric vehicles. By 2040, the International Energy Agency estimates that clean energy technologies will account for as much as 70 percent of total nickel demand.

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Column: Nickel faces huge supply glut as Indonesian output booms – by Andy Home (Reuters – April 27, 2023)

https://www.reuters.com/

LONDON, April 27 (Reuters) – The nickel market is facing a massive supply glut this year as surging Indonesian production continues to outpace global demand. The International Nickel Study Group (INSG) is forecasting a supply-demand surplus of 239,000 tonnes, the largest in at least a decade and a significant increase from last year’s excess of 105,000 tonnes.

It also represents a lift from the Group’s last assessment in October, when it expected a surplus of 171,000 tonnes for this year. Demand expectations have been tempered, although nickel usage is on track to register healthy 6.1% growth in 2023. It still won’t be enough to absorb the wave of new production coming out of Indonesia.

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JPMorgan Has Made Deep Cuts to Metals Business After Nickel Crisis – by Alfred Cang, Jack Farchy and Eddie Spence (Bloomberg News – April 13, 2023)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

(Bloomberg) — JPMorgan Chase & Co. has cut dozens of base metals clients and slashed bankers’ bonuses, as the business remains under harsh internal scrutiny in the wake of last year’s nickel crisis.

JPMorgan, Wall Street’s biggest player in metals, has been reviewing its commodity exposure for over a year after it played a prominent role as the biggest counterparty of the Chinese company at the center of the nickel short squeeze on the London Metal Exchange. It was also a financier of the top Chinese copper trader whose business ground to a halt after a liquidity crisis last year.

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Exclusive: U.S. Role in Notorious Nickel Mine Deal Revealed – by David Brennan (Newsweek Magazine – April 6, 2023)

https://www.newsweek.com/

Guatemala may have become the latest battleground in America’s bid to gain a foothold in the race for strategic metals dominated by China amid a remarkable proposed acquisition of a notorious nickel mine worth $1 billion, Newsweek can reveal.

A memo obtained by Newsweek indicates that, with the support of the U.S. government, the Guatemalan assets of the Switzerland-based Solway Investment Group—which were put under U.S. sanctions amid allegations of Russian influence peddling and ecological devastation—are in line for acquisition by a Canadian company for a “substantial discount.”

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Ford signs nickel smelter deal with Vale Indonesia, Huayou (Nikkei Asia – March 31, 2023)

https://asia.nikkei.com/

Equity investments are part of $4.5bn development of Sulawesi block

JAKARTA — Ford Motor has signed a definitive agreement with the Indonesian unit of Brazilian mining giant Vale and Chinese battery materials producer Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt for joint investments in a nickel smelter project in Indonesia.

The three companies are making equity investments in the development of a high-pressure acid leaching (HPAL) plant in Pomalaa Block, Vale’s nickel mining and processing complex on the southeastern part of Sulawesi island that broke ground in November. Vale earlier said that investments are estimated to reach up to 67.5 trillion rupiah ($4.5 billion) to develop the block’s mining operations and refinery.

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Exclusive: Indonesian president pledges nickel mining clean up amid EV-led boom – by Gayatri Suroyo (Reuters – March 30, 2023)

https://www.reuters.com/

SOROWAKO, Indonesia, March 30 (Reuters) – Indonesia will improve monitoring of environmental standards for nickel mining, amid concerns over production of the metal which is increasingly used in electric vehicle batteries, the country’s President Joko Widodo told Reuters on Thursday.

The Southeast Asian country, which has the largest nickel reserves in the world, will step up scrutiny of mining and order companies to manage nurseries to reforest depleted mines, said the president, who is widely known as Jokowi.

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Nickel Revolution Has Indonesia Chasing Battery Riches Tinged With Risk – by Yudith Ho and Eko Listiyorini (Bloomberg News – March 28, 2023)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

(Bloomberg) — Obi, among hundreds of scattered spice islands in the Maluku archipelago, is an unlikely spot for a metal market convulsion. Only the northern part of this island gets power from the state utility. It’s home mostly to fishermen and coconut farmers.

Harita Nickel’s sprawling complex of processing machinery and conveyor belts tells a different story. One of a new breed of nickel producers, backed by Chinese know-how and cash, it’s using the latest generation of a method known as high-pressure acid leaching, or HPAL, to turn Indonesia’s low-grade ore into metal fit to power a Tesla car.

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Philippine Miners Not Keen on Indonesia Nickel Alliance Plan – by Manolo Serapio Jr. and Ditas Lopez (Bloomberg News – March 14, 2023)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

(Bloomberg) — A plan by top nickel miner Indonesia to create an OPEC-like group to coordinate supply would not benefit the Philippines, the No. 2 producer, according to an industry group.

The Philippines mined a 10th of the in-demand metal that’s used in electric vehicle batteries last year, according to the US Geological Survey, and mainly exports nickel ore to China. That’s well behind Indonesia, which accounted for almost half of global output, and floated the idea of a producer alliance late last year.

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Indonesian farmers fight for their land in nickel mining boom (France24.com – March 13, 2023)

https://www.france24.com/en/

Wawonii (Indonesia) (AFP) – Three women with machetes stood guard at their farm hilltop on Indonesia’s Wawonii Island, directing their blades towards the nickel miners working in the forest clearing below. “I pointed the machete at their faces. I told them: ‘If you scratch this land, heads will fly, we will defend this land to the death’,” said 42-year-old villager Royani, recounting a recent encounter with some of the miners.

The dig site is part of a huge rush to Indonesia, the world’s largest nickel producer, by domestic and foreign enterprises to mine the critical component used in electric vehicle batteries.

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Gov’t urged to incentivize downstream nickel processing – by Bernie Cahiles-Magkilat (Manila Bulletin – March 5, 2023)

https://mb.com.ph/

Imposing a ban or tax on the export of raw ore is not the solution to attract middle to downstream nickel processing in the country, but the granting additional incentives to investors, according to a top industry player.

Martin Antonio G. Zamora, president and CEO of Nickel Asia Corp. (NAC), the country’s lone nickel mining company with a processing operation of its raw ore, said during a media round table that incentives may be granted in the form of additional tax breaks on top of what has been given to manufacturing firms at present to attract more downstream processing operations.

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