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Nickel

BHP has nothing good to say about nickel prices – by Frik Els (Mining.com – August 27, 2024)

https://www.mining.com/

BHP’s relationship with its Western Australian nickel operations has been something of an on-and-off affair. In 2014, Melbourne-based BHP excluded Nickel West from its South32 spin-off, created to house the company’s non-core assets. Today South32 is worth $9.5 billion, 50% more than on its debut, and senior management in Perth may well feel that in the end that was a blessing.

Later that year the world’s top mining company, more than $30 billion clear of its nearest rival, also waved away bidders for Nickel West, said to be Glencore and Chinese nickel group Jinchuan, in a sale put as high as $1 billion.

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Sudbury’s mining operations impress US Consul General – by Hugh Kruzel (Sudbury Star – August 23, 2024)

https://www.thesudburystar.com/

‘There is a lot of interest from US companies here,’ Baxter Hunt says

Visiting dignitaries are always asked why they are in Sudbury. This week, The Sudbury Star met with Baxter Hunt, US Consul General, during his multi-day tour of the area. Hunt had met Greater Sudbury Mayor Paul Lefebvre at PDAC in Toronto earlier this year. Lefebvre invited him to visit.

“I promised him I was going to get up here soon,” said Hunt, who started in this role in the fall of 2023. It is a three-year assignment. Back in July, the Hunt family drove up to Lake Temagami. He called the area “spectacular” and since he has heard of Killarney, he seems keen to experience more of the north.

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Tesla supplier begins nickel drilling near remote Michigan lake – by Garret Ellison (Michigan Live – August 6, 2024)

https://www.mlive.com/

SKANEE, MI — The nickel hunt has come to Roland Lake. Talon Metals, a company developing the Tamarack Mine in Minnesota, began exploratory drilling for potential nickel deposits this summer in the western Upper Peninsula near a small lake in Baraga County’s Arvon Township.

In June, Talon announced the launch of drilling at the “Roland Target,” one of several areas in a roughly 425,000-acre swath of the U.P. the company considers “highly prospective” thanks to its location along a geologically unique mid-continental rift.

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Timmins nickel developer has a gold deposit to sell – by Ian Ross (Northern Ontario Business – July 30, 2024)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Aston Minerals taking calls on 1.5-million-ounce gold deposit to bankroll its nickel exploits

Aston Minerals, an aspiring nickel mine developer in the Timmins area, is looking to swing a deal on a gold deposit at its Eldeston Project.

The Australian junior miner has designs on developing an open-pit nickel mine, 60 kilometres south of Timmins and wants to use the money from a sale of the gold asset to put back into advancing its Bardwell nickel-cobalt deposit.

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Nickel sulfide shortage amid ESG evolution in market pricing – Wyloo CEO – by Anthony Barich (SP Global – July 2024)

https://www.spglobal.com/

Wyloo Pty. Ltd. is a wholly owned portfolio company of Australian private investment group Tattarang Pty. Ltd. Tattarang is owned by Andrew and Nicola Forrest, serving as a holding company for the Forrest family’s private business interests. Tattarang also has a 35.15% interest in iron ore major Fortescue Ltd.

At the end of May, Wyloo put its Cassini and North Kambalda operations on care and maintenance in a bid to weather market oversupply caused by Indonesia flooding the market with cheap nickel.

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In search of the elusive green nickel premium – by Andy Home (Reuters – July 24, 2024)

https://www.reuters.com/

LONDON, July 23 (Reuters) – BHP Group’s ambition to create a green nickel hub in Western Australia is on hold after the world’s largest listed miner announced the entire division will go on care and maintenance later this year.

The company has invested $3 billion since 2020 to turn Nickel West into a major supplier of nickel sulphate for use in electric vehicle (EV) batteries. A supply deal with Tesla Inc. was signed in 2021 for what BHP pronounced was “one of the most sustainable and lowest carbon emission” brands of nickel in the world.

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Vale Base Metals names new CEO – by Staff (Northern Ontario Business – July 23, 2024)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Former Barrick, Xstrata executive Shaun Usmar to steer Brazilian miner’s nickel, copper operations

Shaun Usmar, a mining executive with more than three decades of global experience, has been selected CEO of Vale Base Metals. He succeeds Deshnee Naidoo, who stepped down last March. Usmar will assume his new role at the end of this year and will be based in Toronto.

Vale Base Metals is a spinoff of Brazil’s Vale SA and runs its global base metals assets. It is one of the world’s largest producers of nickel, copper and cobalt with Canadian operations in Sudbury, Thompson, Man, and Voisey’s Bay, Labrador.

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Construction begins on Sudbury’s newest mine – by Lindsay Kelly (Northern Ontario Business – July 19, 2024)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Development on phase one of Magna Mining’s Crean Hill project now underway

On an old brownfield site west of Sudbury, earth-moving equipment has started carving out the early structure of what will eventually become the city’s newest nickel-copper mine.

Work on Magna Mining’s Crean Hill project, located about a 30-minute drive west of Sudbury, got underway in mid-July. A warm, sunny afternoon on July 18 gave company executives the perfect opportunity to show off their development plans to a group of visitors.

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Canada Nickel outlines new million-tonne nickel resource near Timmins – Ian Ross (Northern Ontario Business – July 19, 2024)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

BHP’s pain in mothballing Australian nickel mines is Canada Nickel’s gain, says CEO Mark Selby

Bad news for global miner BHP is great news for Canada Nickel and its ambitious plan to roll out a series of nickel projects in the Timmins area over the next decade, including a new one-million tonne resource south of the city.

“One hundred per cent,” said Canada Nickel CEO Mark Selby in a recent interview with CRUX Investor in reacting to the blue sky opportunity he sees for his company on the news that BHP is shutting down its Western Australian nickel projects until 2027, blaming plummeting metal prices and world oversupply of nickel.

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Vale to create a new open-pit mine in Sudbury – by Len Gillis (Northern Ontario Business – July 18, 2024)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Stobie project is expected to cost $205 million over the next four years and could be a model for future projects in the basin

Vale Base Metals has announced it is going to rejuvenate the historic Stobie Mine property with the creation of a new open pit mine. And the work will be carried out using several local contractors who will employ USW Local 6500 members to carry out the work.

Gord Gilpin, director of Ontario Operations for Vale Base Metals, said the new mine will be a significant four-year project carried out at a cost of more than $200 million.

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Why China Is So Interested in Kazakhstan – by Daisuke Wakabayashi (New York Times – July 18, 2024)

https://www.nytimes.com/

Kazakhstan’s bounty of so-called critical minerals has enriched the country and grabbed the attention of entrepreneurs scrambling to control the ingredients needed to fight climate change.

Kenges Rakishev, one of the richest men in Kazakhstan, stepped off a private jet at a Soviet-era airport and hopped into the lead car of a convoy of sport utility vehicles. The cars tore down a two-lane road, zipping past the snow-covered steppe in eastern Kazakhstan at 90 miles per hour.

Riding shotgun, Mr. Rakishev gestured toward the vast emptiness. “Nothing, right?” he said with a chuckle. “But it’s a unique opportunity.” That opportunity is in nickel, a key mineral used in electric vehicles and other clean energy technologies. Kazakhstan, a mineral-rich country in Central Asia, has a lot of nickel, and Mr. Rakishev is investing tens of millions of dollars to extract it.

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BHP joins the lengthening list of nickel price casualties – by Andy Home (Reuters – July 16, 2024)

https://www.reuters.com/

LONDON, July 16 (Reuters) – Indonesia’s nickel production surge is crushing competitors and challenging the West’s ambitions of diversifying its critical metals supply chains. Australia’s BHP Group is the latest victim of a two-year price slump, which has seen London Metal Exchange three-month nickel tumble from an all-time high of $55,000 per metric ton in March 2022 to $16,650.

The world’s largest listed miner has announced it is suspending its Western Australia nickel operations from October. The decision was well flagged and probably made easier by the loss of feed from Wyloo Metals’ Kambalda mines, which were placed on care and maintenance in May, also due to low prices.

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Sudbury’s Stobie Pit Mine getting new life above ground (CBC News Sudbury – July 17, 2024)

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/sudbury/

Vale has partnered with First Nations, Steelworkers and an operator to start an open-pit mine at old site

What’s old is new. Vale Base Metals announced Wednesday it will start operations at an open-pit mine at the site of the old Stobie Mine in Greater Sudbury.

The $205 million project will be a partnership between Vale, Thiess Mining, United Steel Workers and local First Nations. It’s expected to produce 300,000 tonnes of ore, primarily nickel and copper, by the end of 2024. The previous Stobie Mine operated underground from 1914 to 2017, though it also began as an open pit mine in 1890.

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Indonesian onslaught wipes out Australia’s nickel industry – by Kristie Batten (Mining.com – July 14, 2024)

https://www.mining.com/

An influx of cheap nickel supply from Indonesia has all but killed off Western Australia’s long-running nickel sector. Nickel prices halved in 2023, dipping below $16,000 per tonne in December as surpluses widened. According to Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, Indonesia accounted for 49% of nickel production in 2023, up from less than 5% just eight years ago.

Nickel sector decimated

The impact on Australia’s nickel industry has been dramatic. ASX 200 producer IGO paid A$1.1 billion ($744 million) for nickel miner Western Areas in mid-2022. Just 18 months later, the entire value of the acquisition had been written off and the Cosmos development project was suspended, resulting in the loss of 400 jobs.

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BHP to Shut Australia Nickel Business as Glut Upends Market – by Paul-Alain Hunt, Thomas Biesheuvel, and Mark Burton (BloombergBNN News – July 11, 2024)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

(Bloomberg) — BHP Group Ltd. will close its loss-making nickel business in Australia until at least early 2027, after a global glut of the metal spread havoc through the market.

The company will place its Nickel West business on “care and maintenance” from October due to low prices of the metal used in electric-vehicle batteries, it said in a statement Thursday. It will also halt the development of its West Musgrave nickel mine.

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