The nickel mine that ensnared two tycoons – by Tony Koch (The Australian – December 12, 2015)

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/

Several decades ago, a footballer came from the field at the end of the game and said to his coach, “How did I go?’’  The coach famously replied: “Obviously you went crap. If you had done good, you wouldn’t have to ask.’’

The same could apply to certain nouveau riche self-proclaimed “billionaire entrepreneurs’’ who, on close inspection, often possess little more than massive risky bank loans and the private jet ­status symbol.

It is intriguing in that context to look at the parallel lives of “billionaires’’ Clive Palmer and the late, disgraced Alan Bond, and how the fragility of their bluster was exposed by a relatively insignificant nickel mine and processing plant at Greenvale, 25km north of Townsville in north Queensland.

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Glencore may shut Murrin Murrin nickel mine in WA – by Peter Ker (Sydney Morning Herald – December 11, 2015)

http://www.smh.com.au/

Swiss miner Glencore says it might close more Australian mines if weak commodity prices persist, with the Murrin Murrin nickel mine in Western Australia the next probable candidate.

Glencore has already shuttered 15 per cent of its Australian coal production and reduced production at its Queensland zinc mines, and the company’s chief executive Ivan Glasenberg has said he was committed to shutting more mines if they were not making money.

Mr Glasenberg said only two mines in Glencore’s global portfolio were not profitable at current prices and Murrin Murrin, which is held in Glencore subsidiary Minara Resources, was one of those.

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Glasenberg renews call for lossmakers to shut – by David McKay (MiningMX.com – December 10, 2015)

http://www.miningmx.com/

GLENCORE CEO, Ivan Glasenberg, returned to a favourite theme in questions during the firm’s investor update today saying he “… did not understand” why rival miners kept loss-making assets open.

He also raised the prospect that his company would “walk away” from its 49% stake in the Koniambo nickel mine in New Caledonia.

“We inherited the asset [Koniambo] and we have struggled with it since,” said Glasenberg of the nickel operation that was first established by Xstrata, the company with which Glencore merged in 2013.

“But we are not married to it. If the furnace does not work we will walk away from it. We will not burn cash. This is not Glencore’s style and we won’t do it,” he said.

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Billionaire Palmer steps up fight with China’s CITIC amid nickel slump (Reuters India – December 4, 2015)

http://in.reuters.com/

SYDNEY/MELBOURNE – Dec 4 Officials in Australia’s Queensland state are prepared to step in to help protect jobs at a nickel refinery if needed, but called on its owner, mining magnate and politician Clive Palmer, to be open about the refinery’s financial position.

Concerns resurfaced this week about the future of the Queensland Nickel refinery when a lawyer acting for Palmer sought an advance A$48 million ($35 million) payment in an unrelated dispute, saying the matter needed to he heard that week.

The case against estranged iron ore partner, China’s CITIC Ltd, over any advanced payment of royalties due on the Sino Iron project will now be heard on Monday.

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Brazil asks court to uphold closure of Vale Amazon nickel mine – by Jeb Blount (Reuters U.S. – December 2, 2015)

http://www.reuters.com/

Dec 2 Brazil’s attorney general has asked the supreme court to uphold the closure of Brazilian mining company Vale SA’s Onça Puma nickel mine for allegedly failing to meet the terms of its environmental license, the prosecutor said on Wednesday.

Attorney General Rodrigo Janot made the request in response to a petition by the state of Pará to reopen the mine, ordered closed in August, on the grounds that the shutdown puts 850 jobs at risk and threatens the region’s economy, according to a statement from his office.

Located in Brazil’s Amazon region, Onça Puma produced 5,900 tonnes of nickel in the third quarter, or 8.2 pct of production at Vale, the world’s largest nickel producer.

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Vale’s Onca Puma ferro-nickel plant operates through court-ordered mine closure – by Luc Cohen (Reuters U.S. – December 1, 2015)

http://www.reuters.com/

NEW YORK – Dec 1 Brazilian miner Vale is operating a nickel processing plant at the Onca Puma project, an Amazon mine where a court has ordered mining activities halted, the company’s nonferrous metals chief told Reuters on Tuesday.

While the plant continues to process ore into ferro-nickel, Vale has stopped operations at the open pit mine where it obtains the nickel ores, Jennifer Maki, Vale’s head of base metals, said on the sidelines of the annual “Vale Day” event.

Vale, the world’s largest producer of nickel, has said in recent days it is in full compliance with the order to halt mining operations at the key nickel facility.

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Nickel’s hiatus may be brief without output cuts, stronger demand – by Pratima Desai (Reuters U.S. – November 27, 2015)

http://www.reuters.com/

LONDON, Nov 27 Nickel’s spectacular fall since the middle of last year may have come to a halt, but without significant, enduring output cuts and stronger demand from China’s stainless steel mills the reprieve could be brief.

Benchmark nickel on the London Metal Exchange fell to $8,145 a tonne earlier this week, less than half the level seen in May last year and its lowest since the middle of 2003.

Funds reversing their bets on lower prices on the expectation that Chinese producers may cut output since then pushed prices back up to near $9,000 a tonne.

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China’s Nickel Smelters Agree 20% Production Cut for 2016 (Bloomberg News – November 27, 2015)

http://www.bloomberg.com/

Nickel smelters in China, the largest producer, plan to cut output next year by at least 20 percent in a bid to shore up prices after the metal plunged to its lowest in 12 years.

Eight producers, including the largest refined metal supplier Jinchuan Group Co. and nickel pig iron maker Tsingshan Holding Group Co., also agreed to cut output next month by 15,000 metric tons, according to a statement circulated by the group on Wechat.

The smelters didn’t say how much of China’s total supply the 20 percent reduction would account for, but their statement suggests cuts of about 120,000 tons next year, according to Celia Wang, general manager at Tianjin Zhongwei Group Co.’s investment department.

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UPDATE 1-Nickel smelter developers shelve Indonesia projects amid credit squeeze – by Fergus Jensen (Reuters U.S. – November 18, 2015)

http://www.reuters.com/

JAKARTA, Nov 18 Nickel smelter developers are putting projects on hold as they struggle to get financing with metal prices near their lowest in more than a decade, industry and government stakeholders said on Wednesday.

Indonesia was the world’s top exporter of nickel ore until 2014 when it banned shipments in an effort to push miners to develop downstream, or mineral processing, industries.

With abundant reserves of relatively high quality ore investors say there is potential for developing nickel smelters in Indonesia, but the current market is challenging.

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Iron Ore Crisis Could Be Followed By A Nickel Crisis For BHP Billiton And Vale – by Tim Treadgold (Forbes Magazine – November 13, 2015)

http://www.forbes.com/

The last thing two of the world’s biggest mining companies, BHP Billiton and Vale , need today is speculation that after the disaster at their jointly owned Samarco iron ore mine in Brazil they might also have to close big nickel-mining operations to stem a tide of heavy losses.

That, however, is precisely what has been suggested by research analysts at the investment bank Credit Suisse who have painted a depressing picture of demand for the metal which is largely used to make stainless steel.

Vale, as well as being the world’s biggest iron ore miner is the world’s biggest nickel producer thanks largely to its 2006 takeover of Canada’s Inco.

BHP Billiton is also a big nickel producer via its Australian business unit, Nickel West. The attraction of nickel to both is that buyers are essentially the same, with companies that buy iron ore also buyers of nickel to make stainless steel.

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Sherritt widens loss as lower commodity prices weigh – by Henry Lazenby (MiningWeekly.com – October 28, 2015)

http://www.miningweekly.com/page/americas-home

TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – Diversified miner Sherritt International has increased its net loss by C$158.7-million during the third quarter ended September, as lower prices for nickel, cobalt and oil and gas products weighed on its bottom line.

The Toronto-based firm reported a net loss from continuing operations of C$210-million, or C$0.72 a share, compared with a loss of C$51.3-million, or C$0.17 a share, in the prior-year period.

Excluding special items, the company reported an adjusted loss of C$91.4-million, or C$0.31 a share, missing analyst expectations of a loss of C$0.30 a share, on revenue of C$91.9-million.

Consolidated revenue declined 19% to C$246.5-million for the period, mainly owing to lower nickel and oil prices, which were partly offset by a weaker Canadian dollar relative to the US dollar. The gross working interest (GWI) oil output in Cuba was also lower as oil output from new development wells was not able to offset natural reservoir declines, the company stated.

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Indonesia’s Nationalism – by Neil Chatterjee (Bloomberg News – October 19, 2015)

http://www.bloombergview.com/

Indonesia has been plundered since the Dutch collected nutmeg and cloves from the archipelago they called the East Indies 400 years ago. With treasures strung across 17,000 islands, it’s home to the world’s largest gold mine and exports the most power-station coal, palm oil and tin.

Indonesia’s identity was forged by a half-century of sometimes savage dictatorship that sold its riches overseas. Now the country wants to keep more of its wealth at home. The pull of protectionism has characterized the presidency of Joko Widodo, who came to power in October 2014 as the country’s second freely elected leader.

A rising tide of economic nationalism is threatening to undo the formula that for many years brought much-needed investment to the world’s fourth-most-populous nation and its 250 million people.

The Situation

Widodo, better known as Jokowi, represents a new generation of Indonesian politicians: a self-made furniture seller and can-do bureaucrat focused on cutting graft and red tape.

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Sumitomo Faces Possible Loss on Nickel Project – by Atsuko Fukase (Wall Street Journal – October 16, 2015)

http://www.wsj.com/

Commodities slump has hammered profits and stock prices at many global traders and producers

TOKYO– Sumitomo Corp. faces a potential loss on its multibillion-dollar stake in a Madagascar nickel project, as the global commodities slump takes a heavy toll on Japanese trading houses.

Japanese firms that invested in oil, iron ore and other commodities have booked billions of dollars in losses over the past year and likely face more to come as a result of the long slide in global energy and commodities prices, analysts say.

Sumitomo, Japan’s fourth-largest trading house by revenue, will likely be forced to take a loss on the Madagascar project because nickel prices have dropped below the cost of production, said Akira Morimoto of SMBC Nikko Securities. Nickel prices are near a six-year low.

A Sumitomo spokesman said Friday that the company’s risk exposure to the project is about $2.4 billion, and it would consider whether to book a write-down based on mid- to long-range price projections and production plans.

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Nickel to rise above $20,000/tonne by 2017 – Alto Capital (Mineweb.com – October 8, 2015)

http://www.mineweb.com/

A longer-term perspective supports price appreciation.

A bullish outlook that will see nickel climb out of its current price slump and double in value to in excess of US$20,000 a tonne before March 2017, has been forecast today by market observer, Alto Capital.

Addressing the Paydirt 2015 Australian Nickel Conference in Perth today, Alto Capital research analyst, Mr Carey Smith, said that while the sector was under substantial cost and price pain, nonetheless the trend factors and outlook were far more substantial than they appeared.

“The nickel market has been dismal due to a recipe of stockpiles are up, production is up and demand is down,” Mr Smith said.

“However, going forward, stockpiled Indonesian high grade laterite nickel in China has all been consumed, China Nickel Pig Iron (NPI) production is in decline, global nickel supply is decreasing with only Independence Group’s Nova Bollinger project on the horizon and most producers/miners are losing money – so they will minimise their operations and/or get out of the game,” he said.

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Nickel crisis rocks French islands in Pacific – by Claudine Wery (AFP/Yahoo.com – October 4, 2015)

https://en-maktoob.news.yahoo.com/

Plunging nickel prices and the market woes of world mining giants have shaken the French territory of New Caledonia, a tropical archipelago in the Pacific that is hostage to the metal’s fortunes.

Though best known for its stunning lagoon, pristine beaches and diverse wildlife, New Caledonia’s economy actually relies heavily on nickel, discovered here in the 19th century.

The price of nickel — essential to the manufacture of stainless steel — has plunged 35 percent so far this year to a six-and-a-half year low of less than $10,000 (9,000 euros) a tonne.

A slowdown in economic growth in China, the world’s biggest consumer of nickel, and stockpiles of the metal amounting to more than 450,000 tonnes, have depressed the market.

“We were already in a deteriorating situation when the crisis hit because every sector was in a slowdown. I think we are not far from zero economic growth,” Catherine Wehbe, director of the employers’ federation Medef in New Caledonia, told AFP.

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