Nickel Laterites – Page 49 – Republic of Mining

Workers at Madagascar Ambatovy nickel mine consider strike over jobs – by Lovasoa Rabary (Reuters U.S. – June 8, 2015)

June 8, 2015

http://www.reuters.com/

ANTANANARIVO – Workers at Sherritt International Corp’s Ambatovy nickel project in Madagascar are considering strike action over possible job cuts, a trade union official said on Monday.

The crisis at one of Madagascar’s biggest foreign investment projects comes as the poor but mineral-rich Indian Ocean state faces a political crisis after its parliament moved to sack President Hery Rajaonarimampianina late last month.

Rajaonarimampianina’s peaceful election victory in late 2013, the first vote since a 2009 military coup, was seen as a chance for stability after years of post-coup isolation.

“We could go up on strike, but we have to be careful before deciding to move in this direction,” said Richard Rakotovao, the head of union’s legal department, saying workers were concerned about a wave of job cuts.

But he added: “We fear that Ambatovy could decide to leave Madagascar, saying that there have been too many strikes here.” Representatives at Ambatovy and Sherritt, which is headquartered in Toronto and holds a 40 percent interest in the Ambatovy venture, had no immediate comment.

Nickel Mine, Lead Bullets: Maya Q’eqchi’ seek justice in Guatemala and Canada – by Sandra Cuffe (Mongabay.com – May 19, 2015)

May 25, 2015

http://www.mongabay.com/

German Chub faces the judge as he responds calmly and evenly to question after question during cross-examination. He uses his arms to lift himself up and shift a little in his wheelchair. Other young Maya Q’eqchi’ men had to carry him up the stairs to the second-floor courtroom in Puerto Barrios, a bustling Caribbean port city in eastern Guatemala.

Five and a half years ago, Chub was playing soccer in the community of La Unión, in the department of Izabal, when security guards from the Guatemalan Nickel Company (CGN), a mining corporation, showed up, he told the court. Chub heard a commotion coming from the direction of company-owned hospital property and approached the fence separating the company complex from the soccer field to see what was going on, he said.

“I saw Mynor Padilla pointing his pistol at me,” Chub testified. “When I turned around, I heard the gunshot.”

Chub is one of several Maya Q’eqchi’ community members shot on September 27, 2009 during a crackdown on protests over threats that a group would be evicted from its ancestral lands near CGN’s Fenix ferro-nickel mining project. Chub is paralyzed from the chest down as a result, and doctors determined it too risky to remove the bullet lodged near his spine.

Sherritt’s CEO optimistic about future nickel prices – Business Network News (The Street – April 29, 2015)

April 30, 2015

http://www.bnn.ca/ David Pathe, Chief Executive Officer of Sherritt International, joins BNN’s “The Street” to discuss the mining industry, nickel, and relations with Cuba. He says that he sees a shift from excess nickel supply to surplus demand over the next several years, which will help the company’s bottom line. Despite lower production costs, Sherritt …

Philippine mining regulator cautious on nickel prices – by Erik dela Cruz (Reuters U.S. – April 27, 2015)

April 27, 2015

http://www.reuters.com/

MANILA – (Reuters) – The Philippines’ mining industry regulator said on Monday two new nickel mines would help boost production of the country’s top metal export this year, but prices may remain weak amid tepid demand from top consumer China.

The Southeast Asian country was last year’s biggest nickel ore supplier to China’s producers of nickel pig iron, used in stainless steel production, after previous top supplier Indonesia banned exports of unprocessed metallic minerals.

Leo Jasareno, director of the Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB), said nickel output this year should rise with the entry of the Libjo and Agata mines in the south.

“These new nickel mining projects are expected to boost the 2015 nickel production of the country, with the expected mine output of Libjo and Agata about 714,000 dry metric tons and 1,360,000 dry metric tons respectively,” he said in a statement.

Average nickel prices rose 11.6 percent last year to $7.56 per pound, boosting the value of the country’s overall metallic output to a record high 137.53 billion pesos ($3.1 billion), MGB data released on Monday showed.

Recent Trends in Cuba’s Mining and Petroleum Industries (United States Geological Survey – April 2015)

April 21, 2015

http://www.usgs.gov/

On December 17, 2014, President Obama announced that the United States would begin discussions to restore diplomatic relations with the Government of Cuba and embark on a longer term process of normalization of relations between the two countries.

The U.S. Government had officially severed diplomatic relations with Cuba in 1961 in response to political
changes after the Cuban Revolution. In 1962, President Kennedy declared an embargo on all trade between the United States and Cuba, which was implemented through regulations published in 1963.

On January 15, 2015, the U.S. Departments of Commerce and the Treasury published regulatory amendments to the Cuba sanctions (U.S. Department of the Treasury, 2015) in accordance with President Obama’s December 2014 policy announcement (The White House, 2014). These measures made changes in the implementation of the embargo but did not lift the embargo.

Most transactions involving Cuba, including private and public investment in mineral production, continue to be prohibited. This Fact Sheet provides information regarding the current supply of and demand for mineral commodities produced in Cuba (fig.1).

Nickel miner TVI may delay Philippine IPO due to weak metal prices – by Erik dela Cruz (Reuters U.S. – April 17, 2015)

April 17, 2015

http://www.reuters.com/

Manila – (Reuters) – TVI Resources Development Phils. Inc (TVIRD), a Philippine nickel miner partly owned by Canada’s TVI Pacific Inc, may push back a planned initial public offering to next year if metal prices remain depressed, its chairman said on Friday.

After a sterling performance in 2014, shares in Philippine nickel miners have fallen this year because of a slump in metal prices and an economic slowdown in China. Shares in top producer and exporter Nickel Asia Corp have lost nearly 39 percent.

“The target is to list in the fourth quarter. But right now I would not be recommending to the board that we do it,” TVIRD Chairman Clifford James told reporters after speaking at an industry forum. “When market conditions are good, that’s when we’ll list.”

In October, TVIRD began nickel ore exports from its newly developed Agata mine in Surigao province in southern Philippines, a major nickel-producing region supplying ore to processing plants in Australia, China, South Korea and Japan.

Last year the Southeast Asian country became the biggest ore supplier to China’s producers of nickel pig iron, which is used in stainless steel production, after Indonesia banned exports of unprocessed metallic minerals.

Vale sets aside $185m to finance expansion – by Tama Salim (Jakarta Post – April 1 2015)

April 1, 2015

http://www.thejakartapost.com/

Publicly listed nickel mine operator PT Vale Indonesia (INCO) will allocate up to US$185 million in capital expenditures (capex) this year to finance expansion projects, including the construction of new refining facilities. The company’s chief financial officer, Febriany Eddy, said on Tuesday the allocated sum was significantly higher than last year’s capital spending realization of $76.8 million.

She said that Vale would be gearing up for the second phase of its ore processing and refining facility in Sorowako, South Sulawesi, as well as operations in Bahodopi, Central Sulawesi. “Phase 1 is currently being concluded, so we’re starting to plan out the next phase while we await the licenses for expansion,” Febriany told reporters in South Jakarta, on Tuesday.

“If everything goes according to plan, we can realize all our capital spending and put our projects into motion.” Vale’s capital expenditure for 2014 was 51 percent lower than the $163 million target, because of delays in the issuance of required permits and the decision to further assess the rebuilding of an electric furnace.

On the other hand, stakeholder returns in 2014 were high as the firm reached a dividend payout ratio of 58 percent, equal to $50.2 million. Febriany argued that the high payout rate was in line with Vale’s previous actions, citing average dividend payments of more than 50 percent in the last five years.

Indonesia attracts $1.4 bln in investment for 11 nickel smelters – by Wilda Asmarini (Reuters U.S. – March 11, 2015)

March 11, 2015

http://www.reuters.com/

JAKARTA – (Reuters) – Eleven new nickel smelters are to be built in Indonesia over the next two years at a cost of $1.4 billion, a mining ministry official said, a sign that laws requiring domestic processing of ores are having an impact after initial resistance from the industry.

Early last year, Jakarta put in place export restrictions aimed at forcing mining firms to develop smelting and processing facilities so that Indonesia could refine all of its raw ores and concentrates.

Most of the six new nickel smelters due to be finished in 2015 are located in Sulawesi, Coal and Minerals Director General Sukhyar told reporters late on Tuesday. They involve a combined investment of $920 million and will have capacity to produce 6,000 tonnes of refined nickel a year plus 66,000 tonnes of ferro nickel and 50,000 tonnes of nickel pig iron.

Another five nickel smelters set for completion in 2016 are all in Sulawesi, Indonesia’s main nickel ore region, and will cost about $468 million in total, Sukhyar added.

“We estimate that if all these nickel smelters are completed, in 2018 we will be able to process 30 million tonnes of nickel ore – 50 percent of our nickel ore exports in 2013,” he said, referring to exports before the January 2014 ban.

Nickel prices poised for a rebound – by Biman Mukherji (Wall Street Journal – March 9, 2015)

March 9, 2015

http://www.wsj.com/

PRICES of nickel hit their lowest levels in more than a year last week, suggesting it is just another metal suffering from weaker Chinese demand growth and a strong dollar.

But many traders and analysts think the long decline in nickel’s price is reaching an end, as China’s drive to produce more of a substitute product — nickel pig iron — shows signs of cracking. NPI is commonly used in China as a cheaper alternative to pure nickel for producing stainless steel.

China’s burgeoning output and usage of NPI has meant that the world has had plenty of spare pure nickel. That has put pressure on prices for the commodity: the benchmark three-month nickel futures contract on the London Metal Exchange is down around 30 per cent in the past year.

For more than a year, Chinese producers of nickel pig iron have countered an export ban on the nickel ore they need from their largest supplier, Indonesia, by drawing upon stockpiles of the ore they built up just before the ban was imposed in early 2014. But now China’s stockpile of nickel ore is running short: stocks in five of the country’s main ports have halved within one year, according to Commerzbank.

New Caledonia: Nickel – Market Insights – by Robert Trzebski (Australian Mining – Febraury 26, 2015)

February 26, 2015

http://www.miningaustralia.com.au/home

There are currently three key players in the nickel sector over in New Caledonia. French-owned ERAMET has been present in the country for over 120 years now and operate mines in New Caledonia through their subsidiary, SLN (Société Le Nickel).

They have in total five operations, which are mostly concentrated in the centre of the island at Kouaoua, Thio, Nepoui, and Tiebaghi, not to mention the biggest nickel processing plant in the world, Doniambo.
Vale are the second big player in town, and have the formidable Goro Nickel project under their ownership.

This mine is located in the South of the island. It began operations in August 2010, with over 55 million tonnes of estimated mineral reserve.

Estimated annual production is around 60,000 tonnes of nickel and 5,000 tonnes of cobalt. This is an open pit operation with a processing plant on site. The third and final significant player is SMSP in joint ownership with Glencore Nickel.

The Koniambo mine started open cut operations two years ago in the north of the country, again with a processing plant on site. Koniambo will be an important contributor to New Caledonia’s mining future, being a high-grade nickel deposit of 6.1 Mt of contained nickel that has a current forecast of 25 years of operations.

INTERVIEW-Vale’s CEO rules out nickel IPO, writedowns – by Stephen Eisenhammer and Marta Nogueira (Reuters U.K. – February 11, 2015)

February 11, 2015

http://uk.reuters.com/

Feb 10 (Reuters) – Vale’s chief executive said on Tuesday that a possible initial public offer of part of its nickel division was off the cards for now due to low prices for the commodity, but that other asset sales could be expected over the coming year.

The Brazilian miner is under pressure to resolve a cash-flow squeeze this year as it wrestles to fund mega-projects in the midst of a price slump in its core product: iron ore. But Chief Executive Murilo Ferreira said that the option of spinning off part of its base metals division, which had been outlined in December, was no longer attractive.

“We’re not going to sell it on the cheap … You can forget that possibility,” Ferreira said in an interview at the Rio de Janeiro offices of the world’s largest iron ore producer.

He added that a sale of the entire division was not being considered, and dismissed reports that former Xstrata CEO Mick Davis might be looking to buy it through his startup, X2. “It has been at least two years since I have seen our friend Mick Davis,” he said.

Cash will be raised through other means and Ferreira said the market could expect an announcement of some form of divestment in March and another in the second half of the year. He did not elaborate.

COLUMN-Nickel’s bull story; just a simple matter of timing? – by Andy Home (Reuters U.S. – February 10, 2015)

February 10, 2015

http://www.reuters.com/

Feb 10 (Reuters) – Good things, they say, come to those that wait. Just ask a nickel bull.

The nickel market went on a super-charged rally over the first half of last year, the benchmark London Metal Exchange (LME) three-month price racing up from below $15,000 per tonne to a May high of $21,625.

The trigger was the well-flagged but widely unexpected decision by the Indonesian government to ban the export of unprocessed minerals in January. At the stroke of a presidential pen, China’s massive nickel pig iron (NPI) sector lost its main source of feed.

Great expectations, however, were dashed by reality, specifically a compensatory surge in nickel ore supply from the Philippines.

The subsequent price collapse was as spectacular as the original rally. And here we are again, the London nickel market kicking its heels around the $15,000 level.

But the bull story hasn’t gone away. It has merely been postponed. Nickel is still metal analysts’ favoured upside pick over a two-year time horizon.

So, will this be nickel’s year (again)? Possibly, but there are many moving parts to this bull story and at its core lies one of the least transparent parts of the global industry.

Sumitomo sees first nickel deficit in 5 years – by Aya Takada & Ichiro Suzuki (Mineweb.com/Bloomberg – February 2, 2015)

February 2, 2015

http://www.mineweb.com/

Demand will exceed production by 12,000 metric tons, compared with a 36,000-ton surplus last year. Sumitomo Metal Mining Co., Japan’s biggest nickel producer, expects global output of the metal to fall short of demand in 2015 for the first time in five years as supply from China drops.

Demand will exceed production by 12,000 metric tons, compared with a 36,000-ton surplus last year, according to Hiroshi Sueta, general manager at the Tokyo-based company’s nickel sales and raw materials department. China’s production of nickel pig iron, a cheaper alternative to the refined metal, may drop 15 percent from a year earlier to 365,000 tons, he said.

“Ore stockpiled in China will be probably exhausted by around the middle of this year,” Sueta said in a Jan. 30 interview in Tokyo. “They must review their NPI production for the latter half of this year.”

The forecast deficit represents 0.6 percent of global nickel production this year, and will help London Metal Exchange prices stabilize above the current level, he said. Output is forecast to expand 1.5 percent to 1.99 million tons.

Nickel advanced 9 percent last year, the most among the six main metals on the LME, as Indonesia, the world’s biggest producer from mines, barred unprocessed ore exports in January. The metal for delivery in three months on the LME rose 1.8 percent to $15,165 a ton on Jan. 30.

Sherritt CEO Says Cuba Holds Promise for the Patient – by Liezel Hill (Bloomberg News – January 27, 2015)

January 27, 2015

http://www.bloomberg.com/

The head of Sherritt International Corp. (S), the biggest foreign investor in Cuba, said industries from mining to infrastructure are ripe for development as the island nation moves tentatively to open up trade with the U.S.

The Toronto-based company, which has been mining nickel in Cuba for two decades and generates about 75 percent of its revenue there, has talked to the government about possible new investments in Cuba over the longer term, Chief Executive Officer David Pathe said.

“There’s huge opportunities for infrastructure in Cuba,” Pathe said in an interview in Bloomberg’s Toronto office. “There’s still a big power-generating deficit in Cuba, and there are other resource opportunities.”

U.S. and Cuban diplomats concluded what both sides called encouraging talks last week on restoring ties after the two countries unexpectedly said last month they would begin steps to normalize relations after a half century of U.S. trade and travel restrictions.

There are other ore bodies and “quite vast” nickel reserves on the eastern end of the island where Sherritt has been operating, and the Cuban government has indicated it’s interested in foreign investment in mining, Pathe said.

“We’ve talked to them about things that we might be able to do there over the longer term,” he said. “There could be more interest from international companies.”

China’s Virtue Dragon to Invest $5b in SE Sulawesi Ferronickel Smelter – by Ridho Syukra (Jakarta Globe – January 12, 2015)

January 12, 2015

http://thejakartaglobe.beritasatu.com/

Jakarta. A Chinese ferronickel producer, Virtue Dragon Nickel Industry, plans to invest up to $5 billion in Konawe industrial estate in Southeast Sulawesi province to build a nickel smelter and supporting infrastructure including a power plant and a port, its president director said on Friday.

Speaking to reporters at the Industry Ministry’s headquarters in Jakarta, Andrew Zhu, president director of the Chinese company, said the smelter is set to occupy a total of 500 hectares.

Zhu elaborated that the smelter development would involve three phases. First, it will develop a smelter with a maximum production capacity of 600,000 tons per year on an area of 100 hectares. This phase is expected to be completed by the end of this year.

In the second phase, Virtue Dragon will expand its land area to 200 hectares and double the production capacity to 1.2 million tons per year. This phase is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2017.

Lastly, it will expand the land area to 500 hectares and ramp production to 3 million tons per year. This phase is expected to be concluded in 2019. Zhu said the ferronickel produced will be sold to both Indonesia and China. Meanwhile Zhu said the smelter would be supported by a 335 megawatt power plant and a port.