Twitter

Nickel

Local view: Investment proves merit of Northland copper mines – by Frank Ongaro (Duluth News Tribune – June 30, 2013)

http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/

Frank Ongaro is the executive director of MiningMinnesota.

Minnesota’s business climate received a significant boost recently when two of the state’s proposed copper, nickel and precious metals mining projects secured more than $50 million in long-term financing. Investors throughout the world are recognizing that the strategic metals deposits found in Northeastern Minnesota represent a world-class economic opportunity for our state.

PolyMet Mining, the developer of the Northmet Project near Hoyt Lakes, received a $20 million bridge loan from Glencore International PLC, based in Switzerland, to pay for operations while a $60 million stock offering is completed. Duluth Metals, the majority partner in the development of the Twin Metals Project

in the Babbitt/Ely area, received a $30 million investment from CEF (Capital Markets) Limited, a subsidiary of Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce and Cheung Kong (Holdings) Ltd.

These investments provide more than important capital; they provide independent validation of the quality of the projects proposed. Smart investors will invest only in projects that are likely to succeed, and that means projects that will meet and exceed all state and federal environmental standards and regulations.

Read more

Norilsk to Focus on Arctic Circle Mines as CEO Builds Team (2) – by Yuliya Fedorinova (Bloomberg News – June 28, 2013)

 http://www.businessweek.com/

OAO GMK Norilsk Nickel (GMKN), the largest nickel and palladium producer, plans to focus on developing its operations in northern Russia over international assets after installing a new chief executive officer and management team.

“We will be looking at opportunities to optimize our portfolio of assets, including our international operations, with a key strategic focus on the sustainable increase of the firm’s return on capital,” Norilsk Deputy CEO Pavel Fedorov, head of strategy and business development, said in an interview in Moscow. “Enhancing the efficiency and capitalization of our key Polar Division would be at the heart of the new strategy.”

The division has seven mines north of the Arctic Circle, producing nickel, copper, platinum, palladium, cobalt and gold above the 69th parallel. Plants processing ore from these mines achieve an extraction rate of 83 percent of nickel from each ton of ore after the first phase of enrichment, compared with 70 percent and below for Norilsk’s assets in Africa and Australia, according to its annual report.

Billionaire Vladimir Potanin replaced Vladimir Strzhalkovsky as CEO at the end of 2012 as part of a truce to end a conflict between Norilsk shareholders Interros and United Co. Rusal over how the company was run. In April, Potanin hired Fedorov, a former mergers-and-acquisitions banker, for the 12-member management board among nine newly appointed executives.

Read more

Cossacks Ramp Up Pressure on [nickel] Mining Firm After Riot – (RIA Novosti – June 25, 2013)

http://en.ria.ru/

MOSCOW, June 25 (RIA Novosti) – A representative of a Cossack organization said that a mining company whose allegedly environmentally disastrous operations incited hundreds of locals to riot in central Russia has a month to stop the project or face the consequences, the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper reported Tuesday.

“We reserve the right to campaign against nickel exploration by any legal means,” Valery Davydov was cited as saying.
“And let them keep in mind that if they so much as insert a shovel into the ground, the entire region will explode,” he said, adding that the decision was endorsed by eight Cossack organizations.

The Cossacks, an ethno-social group in Eastern Europe known for their social conservatism and pre-revolutionary military exploits, were repressed under the Soviets for their loyalty to the tsar. Today the group is showing a revival, regaining prominence in Russian public life and sometimes performing vigilante police duties.

The 13-month-long standoff over a prospective nickel mine in the Voronezh Region exploded last weekend, when a crowd of several hundred stormed the premises of a geological exploration party and torched cars, construction trailers and drilling rigs.

Read more

NEWS RELEASE: DRILLING COMMENCES ON NORTH AMERICAN NICKEL’S MANIITSOQ NI-CU-CO & PGE SULPHIDE PROJECT, SOUTHWEST GREENLAND

06/24/2013

VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA–(Marketwired – June 24, 2013) – North American Nickel Inc. (TSX VENTURE:NAN)(OTCBB:WSCRF) (CUSIP: 65704T 108) (the “Company”) is pleased to announce that diamond drilling has begun on its 100% owned Maniitsoq project. A minimum of 3,000 meters is planned and it will focus on testing high priority VTEM electromagnetic (EM) anomalies defined within the 70 km-long Greenland Norite Belt and on following up the multiple high-grade nickel sulphide intersections drilled by NAN last year at Imiak Hill and the Spotty Hill discovery.

NAN CEO Rick Mark states: “The full team is now in Greenland and helicopter supported fieldwork, including channel sampling and ground truthing of anomalies is underway. The drill team has also begun its work and is supported by a second helicopter. The plan is flexible allowing us to stay in areas that produce core of interest to the geologists on site. COO Neil Richardson is leading the crew. We are planning to ship core samples weekly out of Maniitsoq. It will be an exciting summer for all of us.”

The drilling will be done with a helicopter-portable drill contracted from Westcore Drilling Ltd. A borehole pulse EM (BHEM) system, supplied and operated by Crone Geophysics & Exploration Ltd., is on site. It is anticipated that most holes will be surveyed with the BHEM system, which greatly increases the search radius of the holes, allowing geologists to target follow-up holes more precisely. The system can also be used for surface surveying in the event that an EM anomaly requires more detailing prior to drilling.

Read more

Mining in Minnesota — regulation needed – by Rolf Westgard (Minneapolis Star Tribune – June 21, 2013)

http://www.startribune.com/

Rolf Westgard is a professional member of the Geological Society of America and is adjunct faculty on energy subjects for the University of Minnesota’s Lifelong Learning program.

This is a potentially significant industry for the northeastern part of the state. Regulation is needed, and can succeed.

Josephine Marcotty’s June 16 article “Minnesota’s next mining boom” focused on the environment-vs.-economics dispute that hangs over Minnesota’s world-class deposits of copper, nickel, cobalt, gold and platinum group elements.

They lie in a band, meandering from southwest to northeast, adjacent to the Archean granite of Minnesota’s Iron Range. They arrived more than a billion years ago in the magma that featured northern Minnesota’s active volcanic history. They are concentrated out of the magma by liquid sulfur, which acts as a “collector,” because these elements prefer the sulphide liquid to the magma by a factor of 1,000 times more. This process is responsible for forming the world’s economically mineable magmatic nickel-copper sulphide deposits, like those found in Canada, Russia and the United States.

Demand for these elements is soaring. One reason is their use in renewable energy systems that provide transmission, rechargeable batteries and wind turbine technology.

Read more

Nickel price to weaken further as pig iron sector cuts costs (Reuters/Economic Times – June 19, 2013)

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/

SINGAPORE/LONDON: China’s nickel pig iron producers are turning in droves to a new technology that allows them to survive at lower prices, a move that suggests nickel prices, already mired at four-year lows, could fall further.

As nickel prices near $14,000 a tonne, however, output cuts by loss-making producers with higher costs could steady the market, analysts said.

Nickel, mainly used to make stainless steel, is down 17 percent this year. It is the worst performer of a industrial metals complex hit hard by China’s slowing growth. Fed by a commodity boom, prices peaked above $50,000 a tonne in 2007.

Production of nickel pig iron in China, a cheaper substitute for pure nickel used as feedstock by stainless steel mills, has more than quadrupled to an estimated 400,000 tonnes this year from 89,000 tonnes in 2008, according to Macquarie.

At the same time, technical innovations have slashed costs, which has in turn lowered the floor for nickel prices.

The break-even cost for nickel pig iron produced by rotary kiln electric furnace (RKEF) technology is now as low as $12,500 a tonne and its market share has soared, said Dennis Zamora, senior vice president for marketing and strategic planning at Nickel Asia Corp.

Read more

Our view: ‘Eyes wide open’ on metals mining – Duluth News Tribune Editorial (June 19, 2013)

http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/

A guest speaker in Duluth yesterday long has been a dark cloud over any prediction of economic benefit related to the coming mining of precious metals in northern Minnesota.

A guest speaker in Duluth yesterday long has been a dark cloud over any prediction of economic benefit related to the coming mining of precious metals in northern Minnesota. And he was brought here by Friends of the Boundary Waters Wilderness, a Minneapolis-based anti-mining nonprofit.

So the expectation, naturally, was for a mining-is-evil message. And that’s just what Thomas Power, a Princeton-educated economics professor of 40 years at the University of Montana, delivered. But at least he did so with a history lesson rather than with half-truth propaganda or with picket-sign catch phrases that too often have been the weak tools of the doom-and-gloom, anti-mining crowd.

“My message is to go in with eyes wide open,” Power told the News Tribune Opinion page before speaking over the lunch hour Tuesday at Clyde Iron. “I’ve been doing economic research and teaching courses on Montana’s and on the western states’ economies for 45 years. … It wasn’t possible to study the Montana economy without paying attention to the mining part of it.”

Read more

Copper mining economics questioned by Montana economist – by John Myers (Duluth News Tribune – June 19, 2013)

http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/

University of Minnesota Duluth geologists call it the largest untapped copper-nickel deposit in the world, with millions of tons of valuable metals worth billions of dollars sitting in the Duluth complex of rock under Minnesota’s Arrowhead.

University of Minnesota Duluth geologists call it the largest untapped copper-nickel deposit in the world, with millions of tons of valuable metals worth billions of dollars sitting in the Duluth complex of rock under Minnesota’s Arrowhead.

Supporters and economic reports point to hundreds of new mining jobs if Minnesota’s first-ever copper mines become a reality, along with spinoff employment, huge payrolls and millions in taxes and royalties paid. Mining, already one of Northeastern Minnesota’s largest industries thanks to taconite iron ore, has the potential to become even bigger with copper, nickel, palladium, platinum and gold.

But Thomas Power, former chairman of the University of Montana’s economics department, warned Northland residents Tuesday to be careful in the rush into copper.

At a Duluth lunch forum sponsored by the Friends of the Boundary Waters environmental group, the professor said mining’s economic costs are often overlooked in the luster of a promised boom time. He said many economic reports released around proposed mining projects are ripe with benefits but fail to address costs. That should cause economists, and the public, to bristle, he said.

Read more

Minnesota’s next mining boom has picturesque Ely divided – by Josephine Marcotty (Minneapolis Star Tribune – June 16, 2013)

http://www.startribune.com/

ELY, Minn. – Every year Randy Stender and his family spend Memorial Day weekend at Birch Lake Campground, a tradition that ties him to the wild, unspoiled lands here on the edge of the Iron Range where he grew up. There was a time, he says, when he and his wife would have moved back — if there had been a job like the one his father once had at Reserve Mining.

So when he heard that Birch Lake’s shoreline could become the site of one of the largest copper mines in the country, he immediately grasped the conflict gripping this charming tourist town and spreading across Minnesota. “That’s the catch,” he said, opening his arms wide to the lake that shimmered in the morning light. “Because I kind of like it like this.”

The prospect of a massive new mining industry here is igniting long-simmering tensions — between those who long for the surge in prosperity it could bring and those who say it threatens the splendor of the North Woods and the tourism that relies on it.

At least a dozen companies are exploring for copper, nickel, gold and other precious metals in a vast geological formation called the Duluth complex, which stretches from Tamarack, Minn., to the nearby Kawishiwi River that feeds the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. Company officials say hard-rock mining can — and will — be done safely, while creating thousands of jobs and spawning a new industry that could someday dwarf the state’s taconite and frac sand mining operations.

Read more

After 10 years of effort, Rio Tinto clips Eagle Project’s wings – by Dorothy Kosich (Mineweb.com – June 13, 2013)

http://www.mineweb.com/mineweb/

The controversial Kennecott nickel-copper mine destined to usher in a new mining era and more jobs for Michigan’s economically hard hit Upper Peninsula is being sold.

RENO (MINEWEB) – After more than a decade spent studying, permitting and developing the first U.S. primary nickel mine to be built in years, Rio Tinto has decided to sell Kennecott’s Eagle Mine to Lundin Mining for US$325 million in cash.

Since Rio Tinto announced in 2010 that it would invest US$469 million in the development of the Eagle Mine, which was supposed to become the biggest nickel mine in the country, the $325 million-price tag at first appears to be a bargain for Lundin.

Nevertheless, in addition to the total acquisition price of $325 million, remaining investment of Lundin Mining for the balance of 2013 and 3014 to bring the Eagle Mine into production is estimated at $400 million.

Located northwest of Marquette, in the historic mining region of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, Eagle was to be the first new mining operation to be built in Michigan in years. The “world class” underground nickel-copper mine was also supposed to boost the fortunes of an economically hard-hit region with 500 construction and 220 mining jobs. Rio Tinto had pledged to give 75% of those jobs to local residents.

Read more

Excerpt: From Meteorite Impact to Constellation City: A Historical Geography of Greater Sudbury – by Oiva W. Saarinen

To order a copy of “From Meteorite Impact to Constellation City”, please click here: http://www.wlupress.wlu.ca/Catalog/saarinen-meteorite.shtml

From International Nickel Company to Inco, and Merger with Mond (1902–1928)

Between 1902 and 1928, International Nickel prospered from the pre-war European demands for nickel in armour plate, the military needs of the First World War, increased peacetime uses for nickel in the United States, and the impact of the roaring twenties. By 1903, nickel production from Sudbury exceeded that of its main rival, New Caledonia. This dominance became continuous after 1905. The control of Sudbury’s wealth was paralleled by the dominance of International Nickel within the nickel industry. Through the use of long-term contracts with its consumers, the company was able to thwart competitors from entering the market, especially in the United States.

Its ability to meet the growing global demand for nickel was facilitated by the opening of Creighton mine in 1901 and the growth of this operation by the First World War into the world’s largest operating mine.10 Its output far surpassed that of the company’s other major source, Crean Hill.

Also significant was the opening of a new smelter by the CCC in Copper Cliff in 1904 which heralded the appearance of the first of three great smokestacks which dominated the Sudbury skyline for years to come. These smokestacks served to disperse the sulphur fumes released during the smelting process into the atmosphere.

Read more

Arctic governments stand by as deadly pollution spews from Russia’s Nikel mine – by Alex Boyd (Nunatsiaq on line.ca -June 11, 2013)

http://www.nunatsiaqonline.ca/

“More profitable to keep polluting the region than modernize the production”

The nickel mine in the aptly named town of Nikel in northwestern Russia is usually notable for three things: it’s big, it’s a massive source of pollution, and, for more than 20 years, it’s defied all attempts to change.

Controversy is as constant in Nikel as the clouds of sulphur dioxide; the mine here is equal parts economic powerhouse and environmental scourge. Yet, criticism has kicked up a notch in recent weeks after European leaders met to discuss issues in the region — and failed to mention Nikel.

Last week’s Barents Summit in Kirkenes, Norway brought together leaders from all over northern Europe, but despite old promises to deal with the mine’s pollution and new commitments to environmental sustainability, the mine located just 50 kilometres away went unmentioned.

Amid the international hoopla over the Arctic, it’s easy to forget that the region is a relatively small place, with a small population. The presence of organizations such as the Arctic Council and the Barents Council means countries are increasingly trying to tackle Arctic issues as a group, but disagreements still arise.

Read more

Civil War Pretty Much Declared in Ely over [Minnesota Twin Metals] Sulfide Mining – by Bill Hanna Executive Editor (Mesabi Daily News – June 8, 2013)

http://www.virginiamn.com/

ELY — A well-known self-described “612-er” pretty much issued a declaration of civil war in Ely over copper/nickel/precious metals mining on a cloudy and misty Saturday afternoon a week ago.

In combative remarks during an event to officially open the “Sustainable Ely” storefront in a house on the city’s main drag of Sheridan Street, former WCCO Twin Cities TV reporter/personality Don Shelby issued some marching orders directed against the proposed Twin Metals Minnesota nonferrous project near Ely and Babbitt.

Meanwhile, Twin Metals continues its work and involvement in the community, with one of its headquarters in Ely, while planning and setting the stage for a major project that will create more than 1,000 long-term jobs.

A group of more than 100 anti-sulfide mining supporters packed inside the house’s lower level were more than receptive to his comments, nodding in agreement and clapping in support. They embraced the hard-line message, many of them with stern facial expressions.

Shelby, who is also a board member of the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy, which is headquartered in St. Paul, told the faithful that they won’t have to just fight the mining companies over proposed nonferrous projects in the area.

Read more

Rio Tinto reports at [Eagle] mine forum – by Stephen Anderson ([Michigan] Daily Mining Gazette – May 16, 2013)

http://www.mininggazette.com/

L’ANSE – Rio Tinto representatives provided an update on the Eagle Mine, collected live electronic survey results through a community scorecard and fielded an array of questions and comments during a mining forum Wednesday night at the L’Anse American Legion Post 144.

Mine update

Matt Johnson, manager of external relations at Rio Tinto Eagle, gave a brief historical recap of the mine, starting with explorations dating back to the 1950s, the discovery of the ore body in 2002, the permit application and finalization in 2008 and 2010, respectively, and the start of underground drilling in 2011.

“We do have a goal of being in production in 2014,” he said. “A few months ago we announced a moderated schedule, so we pushed our schedule back. (Work on the Humboldt Mill) has been postponed for the time being.”

Production was originally slated to start in early 2014; now it’ll likely be toward the end of that year, but that’s not the only reason the life of the mine will extend farther.

Read more

Sherritt facing demands from activist as chairman Ian Delaney retires – by Peter Koven (National Post – May 8, 2013)

The National Post is Canada’s second largest national paper.

A turbulent period could be looming for Sherritt International Corp., as an activist investor is challenging the company just as its long-time chairman and figurehead retires.

Scott Leckie of Takota Asset Management is calling on Toronto-based Sherritt to buy back more stock and study a potential lawsuit against SNC-Lavalin Inc., which he believes is responsible for cost overruns and delays at the company’s Ambatovy nickel project. He said he took his complaints public after Sherritt ignored three private letters.

“[Sherritt CEO] David Pathe has said they’re in a position to respond to opportunities. To me that means they have excess capital above and beyond anything they’re going to need for the last bits and pieces of Ambatovy,” Mr. Leckie said in an interview.

Sherritt also quietly revealed in a filing that chairman Ian Delaney, 69, is retiring from the company and is not standing for re-election at the annual meeting later this month.

He has been Sherritt’s dominant personality since he seized control of it in a proxy fight in 1990, and his departure leaves a major gap. But it does not come as a shock; in late 2011, he passed the CEO job on to Mr. Pathe and said he was content with the state of the company.

Read more