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Nickel Laterites

Slowing China demand to curb PH nickel ore exports – by Karl R. Ocampo (Inquirer.net – January 6, 2018)

https://business.inquirer.net/

Weaker metal demand from China is expected to affect the local mining industry, which has been the Mainland’s chief supplier when it came to nickel ore.

According to a report by the World Bank entitled “Commodity Markets Outlook,” there is a possibility for the booming Chinese economy’s consumption of metal to flatline as it limits its output and exports due to tighter environmental policies.

Moreover, the shift of that country’s focus from manufacturing to services might bring demand for steel in particular to dip. For the last 15 years, the World Bank said China has accounted for the bulk of global growth in the consumption of metals as it continued to grow its red-hot economy.

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[Philippine Mining] ‘Responsible mining’ key to industry’s survival – by Karl Ocampo (Inquirer.net – December 28, 2017)

http://business.inquirer.net/

n 2016, the mining industry was greeted with the appointment of Regina Paz Lopez as the country’s environment secretary, a staunch environment advocate who had President Duterte as one of her earnest backers.

According to the President, appointing Lopez as environment secretary was a no-brainer. He recalled a passionate woman entering his office in Davao who flew all the way from Manila to show him pictures of environmental destruction caused by mining. He needed no convincing that this woman was right for the job.

It was no surprise then that Lopez’s 11-month tenure, which carried over until the early part of 2017, became the precedent of a tumultuous year for the mining industry.

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Miners Invest $5b in Indonesia Nickel Smelters in First 10 Months – by Sarah Yuniarni (Jakarta Globe – December 28, 2017)

http://jakartaglobe.id/

Jakarta. Thirteen mining companies have invested a combined $5.03 billion in the construction of nickel smelters during the first 10 months of this year to comply with Indonesian government requirements, an official at the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources said.

President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo issued a government regulation earlier this year to amend several articles in a 2010 mining regulation, which now requires miners to process raw materials within Indonesia before exporting them. To do this, miners must build smelters to produce value-added products.

“Our new regulation, issued [by the president] this year, contributes to the value-added nickel products and it has had a positive impact on smelter investment this year,” Bambang Gatot Aryono, the ministry’s director general of coal and minerals, told reporters on Wednesday (27/12).

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RPT-COLUMN-Blue skies, green cars and a year of revolution for industrial metals – by Andy Home (Reuters U.S. – December 21, 2017)

https://www.reuters.com/

LONDON, Dec 22 (Reuters) – A little bit of metals history was recorded on March 29 this year. The small Central American country of El Salvador became the first nation to ban all exploration, mining and processing of metals.

Don’t worry if you didn’t notice. El Salvador doesn’t have any operating mines. It was going to have a gold mine, but in a public debate pitting economic growth against clean water supply, water won. Such environmental push-back against mining has become an ever more common feature of the metals industry.

But this year has marked a tipping point with China, a dominant producer of so many industrial metals, launching its own clamp-down on pollution. Multiple supply chains from aluminium to zinc have been disrupted with largely bullish, albeit at times chaotic, price impact.

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Vale’s reality check for nickel’s electric vehicle dreams – by Andy Home (Reuters U.S. – December 12, 2017)

https://www.reuters.com/

Nickel is one of the materials expected to win from the coming electric vehicle (EV) revolution. Electric vehicles will be powered by lithium-ion batteries, which need cobalt and nickel. Indeed, as cobalt’s potentially fragile supply chain comes under ever-increasing scrutiny, battery-makers are likely to try to use less of the stuff in favor of more nickel.

So it might seem strange that the world’s largest nickel producer is actively curtailing capacity at mines and refineries. Yet that is precisely what Brazil’s Vale is doing, removing around 100,000 tonnes of supply over the next two years.

While “everyone knows there are great opportunities” for nickel in the EV sector, “prices are not there”, according to Vale Chief Executive Fabio Schvartsman, speaking at an investor event last week.

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Vale to mothball New Caledonia nickel mine if no stake buyers found – by Neil Hume (Financial Times – December 8, 2017)

https://www.ft.com/

Vale will mothball its troubled nickel project on New Caledonia in the second half of next year if it has not found a strategic partner prepared to purchase a stake of 20 to 40 per cent, according to its chief executive.

Speaking to journalists in London, Vale boss Fabio Schvartsman said the Brazilian miner would not continue to “invest and lose money” on the loss-making mine, which cost billions of dollars to build and has been dogged by problems.

Asked when the sale process would end Mr Schvartsman said June after which time the mine would be put on care and maintenance if a partner had not been found.

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Vale cuts nickel output but is positive on long-term demand – by Christian Plumb (Reuters U.S. – December 6, 2017)

https://www.reuters.com/

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Brazilian miner Vale SA dialed back its nickel output forecasts for the next five years on Wednesday, although the world’s top producer of the metal praised its longer term prospects on likely soaring demand for electric cars.

Vale cut its nickel output estimate by 15 percent to 263,000 tonnes next year and said it was still seeking an investor for its New Caledonia nickel mine.

However, Vale wants to “preserve its nickel optionality” ahead of an expected boom in electric vehicles in the next decade, said Jennifer Maki, executive director of Vale’s base metals unit, at an annual investor presentation in New York.

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Nickel slides to six-week low on deteriorating fundamentals (Australian Financial Review/Reuters – November 29, 2017)

http://www.afr.com/

Nickel prices hit their lowest level in more than six weeks on Tuesday as the market fretted about weaker demand in top consumer China and rising supplies from major producer Indonesia.

Benchmark nickel on the London Metal Exchange ended down 1.9 per cent at $US11,350 a tonne. In earlier trading the metal used mostly in stainless steel fell to $US11,255, its lowest since October 12.

Copper slipped 2 per cent to $US6805, aluminium fell 1.5 per cent to $US2102.5, zinc lost 0.9 per cent to $US3158, lead ceded 1.5 per cent to $US2427 and tin was down 0.1 per cent at $US19,550.

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New Caledonia and Papua New Guinea: Large-scale Mines and Local-level Politics – by Catherine Putz (The Diplomat – November 29, 2017)

https://thediplomat.com/

New Caledonia and Papua New Guinea are not always mentioned together. Despite geographic proximity, colonial history has cast them into two different scholarly camps.

Split between Anglophone and Francophone researchers, the similarities between the two — namely their mutual economic dependence on mineral resource exports and the impact of large-scale mining on indigenous communities and local politics — have not been fully explored. A new volume from ANU Press, Large-scale Mines and Local-level Politics: Between New Caledonia and Papua New Guinea, seeks to bridge this gap.

The volume’s editors, Colin Filer and Pierre-Yves Le Meur, spoke to The Diplomat about the impacts of large-scale mining on local-level politics in New Caledonia and Papua New Guinea.

New Caledonia and Papua New Guinea are geographically close, what other similarities are there between the two states?

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RPT-GRAPHIC-Nickel rally stalls, electric car boost some years away – by Pratima Desai and Eric Onstad (Reuters U.S. – November 24, 2017)

https://www.reuters.com/

LONDON, Nov 24 (Reuters) – A recognition that electric vehicles (EVs) are unlikely to move the nickel demand dial for some years, slowing demand from China’s stainless steel mills and rising supplies have halted a frenzied price rally and are likely to keep weighing on prices.

Benchmark nickel on the London Metal Exchange soared by 50 percent from mid-June to a two-year peak of $13,030 a tonne on Nov. 1, based largely on expectations of strong demand to make the rechargeable batteries used to power EVs.

Since then the price has eased back to about $12,000. Wood Mackenzie analysts estimate nickel demand in EV batteries will rise to about 220,000 tonnes in 2025 from about 40,000 tonnes last year.

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Glencore Sees Nickel in Best Shape in Decade Before EVs Take Off – by Mark Burton (Bloomberg News – November 21, 2017)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

Glencore Plc is seeing the best market conditions for nickel in at least a decade, and electric cars are barely playing a part yet.

The miner and trading giant expects nickel’s 2017 deficit at 170,000 metric tons — one of the biggest in years and more than most market estimates — driven by a 9 percent demand increase from the steel industry, the top user. The market is tightening amid falling stockpiles and rising premiums for physical deliveries, said Owen Gibbs, a senior nickel trader at Glencore.

Prices recently hit a two-year high amid forecasts from banks including Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Bank of America Corp. that an electric-vehicle boom will boost demand for battery metals in the next decade.
Glencore also expects a strong lift in nickel consumption from electric cars, but not materially until 2020. Once that happens, miners will struggle to keep up with faster usage, Gibbs said.

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RPT-COLUMN-Nickel loses its electric car fizz, realises it’s still a steel play – by Clyde Russell (Reuters U.S. – November 20, 2017)

https://www.reuters.com/

LAUNCESTON, Australia, Nov 20 (Reuters) – The nickel market is learning that there is a difference in believing you are the next big thing in battery metals and the reality that you are actually still beholden to the Chinese steel sector.

Nickel was one of the darlings at last month’s annual London Metal Exchange Week, with everybody from producers, to traders and consumers talking up its prospects on the back of the expected surge in electric vehicles.

The euphoria helped drive benchmark LME nickel to a more than two-year closing high of $12,920 a tonne on Nov. 6, but since then the price has stumbled.

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Philippines’ Duterte keeps open pit mining ban in policy clash – by Manolo Serapio Jr (Reuters U.S. – November 19, 2017)

https://www.reuters.com/

MANILA (Reuters) – Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has not lifted a ban on open pit mining, his spokesman said on Monday, going against the stance of a government panel and the environment minister who are seeking to reverse the policy.

Open pit mining is allowed under the laws of the Southeast Asian country, the world’s top nickel ore exporter. But, the former environment minister Regina Lopez banned it during her 10 months in office, saying the environmental degradation ruined the economic potential of places where it was done.

The Mining Industry Coordinating Council (MICC), an inter-agency panel that makes recommendations on mining policy, last month asked the Department of Environment and Natural Resources to lift the ban. Roy Cimatu, the new Environment and Natural Resources Secretary, supports removing the ban. Cimatu replaced Lopez when she stepped down in May after the Philippine Congress voted not to confirm her.

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Nickel Supply Rush Seen Cooling Rally Before Batteries Boost (Bloomberg News – November 13, 2017)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

Forget electric vehicles for now. Nickel must first contend with a new wave of supply from Indonesia and the Philippines, as well as a Chinese stainless steel market that’s at risk of slowing after a two-year boom.

The metal climbed to the highest level this month since June 2015, lifted by predictions of a jump in demand from electric vehicles. But prices have since retreated as the boost from new energy autos lies several years in the future and investors reset their focus on more immediate concerns.

Batteries will represent only 3 percent of demand this year, compared with the two-thirds used in stainless steel, according to the International Nickel Study Group.

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Sherritt formalises restructuring of Ambatovy JV – by Henry Lazenby (MiningWeekly.com – November 10, 2017)

http://www.miningweekly.com/

VANCOUVER (miningweekly.com) – Canadian diversified miner Sherritt International has signed a definitive agreement to restructure the Ambatovy Joint Venture (JV), which will see Sherritt transfer its 28% stake in return to eliminate debt from its balance sheet.

Under the terms of the JV restructuring, which was first revealed in May, the Toronto-based company will retain a 12% stake in the Madagascar nickel/cobalt mine, and cancel C$1.3-billion of accrued partner loans from its balance sheet.

Sherritt, which owned a 40% stake in Ambatovy, had for several quarters not been funding capital cash calls by its partners Sumitomo Holding (32.5%) and Korea Resources (Kores) (27.5%), balking against the ‘40 for 12’ issue.

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