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Nickel

Who knew? Timmins has world’s 12th biggest nickel sulphide resource – by Staff (Northern Ontario Business – March 2, 2020)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Canada Nickel Company posts maiden resource for Crawford Project

Only days after its start of trading on the TSX-Venture Exchange, Canada Nickel Company posted the first resource calculation for its sole property in northeastern Ontario.

The Toronto base metal explorer claims its sitting on the 12th largest resource of nickel sulphide in the world. The company released a “maiden resource” of the higher grade core from its Crawford nickel-cobalt sulphide project, 40 kilometres north of Timmins, on Feb. 28.

Crawford contains a measured and indicated nickel resource of 600 million tonnes, grading 0.25 per cent nickel, with inferred resources of 310 million tonnes, grading 0.23 per cent.

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UPDATE 1-Russia’s Nornickel warns of coronavirus risks, reports leap in profit (Reuters U.S. – February 26, 2020)

https://www.reuters.com/

MOSCOW, Feb 26 (Reuters) – Russian mining giant Norilsk Nickel (Nornickel) said on Wednesday it expected uncertain times ahead in two of its key markets — nickel and copper — as the coronavirus outbreak continues to disrupt both demand and supply.

The company, which reported 2019 net profit up 95% compared to the previous year, said the outbreak, which originated in China, made the future health of these markets hard to predict.

“The Chinese government restrictions on mobility, extended work holidays and mandatory closures have imposed a significant disruption to the supply chain and already had a significant impact on end consumption,” Nornickel said, referring to nickel markets.

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Vale hiring blitz draws a crowd – by Mary Katherine Keown (Sudbury Star – February 26, 2020)

https://www.thesudburystar.com/

Copper Cliff may have experienced its first-ever traffic jam on Tuesday as hundreds of people flocked to the hamlet for the Vale hiring pop-up.

More than a thousand hopeful applicants attended the employment event on day one, which saw the mining company recruiting for underground miners; supervisors; tradespeople; equipment technicians; engineers; technologists; and support staff.

Traffic was backed up at one point to the arena and it took nearly 40 minutes to reach the Copper Cliff Club from Jube’s Bar + Grill. Most people spent another 45-60 minutes waiting in line in the cold, just to enter the building.

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Tesla’s China surprise big blow for cobalt, nickel price bulls – by Frik Els (Mining.com – February 19, 2020)

https://www.mining.com/

Long-suffering cobalt bulls were dealt another blow on Wednesday after reports that the world’s largest electric carmaker is shifting some production of its most popular model away from batteries that contain nickel and cobalt.

In a surprise move, China’s top battery manufacturer CATL will supply Tesla with lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries for its Model 3 production at its newly built $2 billion factory outside Shanghai.

The Model 3 is Tesla’s most popular, and the US-made version uses the company’s nickel-cobalt-aluminum (NCA) cathode chemistry. Most other automakers favour nickel-cobalt-manganese (NCM) cathode chemistries.

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Sudbury’s iconic Superstack easing into retirement – by Jim Moodie (Sudbury Star – February 19, 2020)

https://www.thesudburystar.com/

One of two new, smaller stacks already in operation

The long plumes that used to flow from the Superstack in Copper Cliff have been reduced to wisps as the mega chimney nears retirement and two mini versions take over.

You could call it a passing of the baton, although in this case it’s more like breaking one really big one in half. In fact, each of the replacement stacks is closer to a third of the size of the original.

The Superstack stretches 1,250 feet in height and is more than 100-feet-wide at its base. The new stacks are much slimmer and top out at 450 feet. Lights now adorn the shorter towers and one is already emitting puffs of smoke.

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‘Transformation’ is in the air at Vale – by Ian Ross (Northern Ontario Business – February 12, 2020)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Electric vehicle market, carbon neutral plans, environmental safeguards part of Sudbury miner’s current and future operations

The thrust of Dino Otranto’s presentation was on the transformational challenges ahead for base metal mining giant Vale to create a business that’s sustainable in the Sudbury basin for generations to come.

But the opening image he flashed to a Greater Sudbury Chamber of Commerce lunchtime crowd on Feb. 11 was of the Brumadinho tailings dam break at Vale’s Córrego do Feijão iron ore mine in Brazil on Jan. 25, 2019. It was the company’s second major dam breach in that country in four years.

The man-made environmental catastrophe at Brumadinho produced a toxic mudflow that swept away the company’s offices, and houses, farms and roads in a nearby village, and contaminated a major river system.

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Editorial: Uncertainty lingers as Vale switches Thompson bosses again (Thompson Citizen – February 12, 2020)

https://www.thompsoncitizen.net/

The removal of Gary Eyres as head of Vale’s Manitoba Operations and his replacement with Franco Cazzola, who formerly worked in Thompson for a few years from 2005 to 2008, indicates that things are still in flux at the Thompson mining and milling operation.

As a result, the uncertainty that first took hold of Thompson nearly a decade ago when the Brazilian mining company that purchased Inco in 2006 announced that it was shutting down the smelter and refinery still lingers, even after the axe has fallen.

In the lead up to the closure of the smelter and the refinery in mid-2018, people didn’t know what to expect. Obviously, the loss of a few hundred good paying jobs was going to have a trickle-down effect and it has, as several businesses have closed up shop over the past few years, though sometimes it is because their owners couldn’t find buyers or family members to take over the operations from them.

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Vale’s Sudbury operations face challenge and opportunity, COO says – by Jim Moodie (Sudbury Star – February 11, 2020)

https://www.thesudburystar.com/

Demand for nickel will grow, but there is ‘unparalleled competition’ to supply the metal, Dino Otranto says

The future looks bright, if challenging, for Sudbury’s biggest miner, members of the local business community heard Tuesday.

“We have fundamentally a fantastic business,” said Dino Otranto, the new boss of base metals with Vale, at a Greater Sudbury Chamber of Commerce luncheon. “There is great opportunity and great potential, but we’ve got some hard work to do, and that’s the message — we truly have a transformation ahead of us.”

Otranto, appointed last year as COO for Vale’s North Atlantic Operations, said there is still an ample supply of ore in the Sudbury Basin and demand for nickel and other metals will only grow with the expansion of the electrical-vehicle market.

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Column: Virus another wild card in nickel’s year of uncertainty – by Andy Home (Reuters U.K. – February 11, 2020)

https://uk.reuters.com/

LONDON (Reuters) – Nickel is the weakest performer in the London Metal Exchange (LME) base metals pack so far this year. It’s a dramatic change of fortune after last year’s bull rally.

At a current $13,135 per tonne London nickel is down by almost 8% since the start of January and back to where it was last July, when Indonesia announced it was bringing forward a ban on the export of nickel ore from 2022 to this year.

The ban “remains a structurally bullish event”, according to analysts at Citi, given the flow of Indonesian ore to China accounts for around 12% of global mined nickel production. (“Nickel: it gets worse before it gets better, but still a medium-to-long term buy,” Feb. 5, 2020)

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Bill to ban copper-nickel mining draws sharp contrast between Boundary Waters, Iron Range – by Dan Kraker (Minnesota Public Radio News – February 6, 2020)

https://www.mprnews.org/

A bill that would ban copper-nickel mining on a huge swath of federal land near the Boundary Waters got its first hearing in Congress Wednesday in Washington.

But the fight over the legislation — and what it stands for — got underway on Minnesota’s Iron Range last week, in a packed union hall in the city of Virginia. “I am tired of the Iron Range having to endure these attacks on our way of life,” Pete Stauber, the Republican congressman who represents the region, told the crowd.

When Stauber says “our way of life,” he means mining. Iron ore mines have operated for well over a century in northeastern Minnesota. There are fourth-generation miners working there today, descendants of immigrants who mined the ore that made the steel that helped win world wars.

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Nickel price under pressure in 2020 – report – by Valentina Ruiz Leotaud (Mining.com – February 2, 2020)

https://www.mining.com/

A report by Wood Mackenzie argues that despite the global continued investment in new battery plants, weaker demand for nickel sulphate or NiSO4 tied to last year’s cut in Chinese electric vehicle subsidies will translate to more discounts in the metal’s price in 2020.

“We previously noted that premiums for NiSO4 might come under pressure due to stronger supply. While that did materialise, the unexpected and immediate mid-year downgrading in Beijing’s EV subsidy programme had a greater impact,” Wood Mackenzie’s Head of Nickel, Andrew Mitchell, wrote in the report.

“EV sales were reduced by half, China’s EV sales target of 1.5 million units was derailed and this cut demand for batteries and, therefore, precursor materials, including NiSO4. The impact will extend well into 2020.”

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Column: Nickel and copper are bull stand-outs in base metals poll – by Andy Home (Reuters U.K. – January 30, 2020)

https://www.reuters.com/

LONDON (Reuters) – Nickel and copper are the bull stand-outs in the latest Reuters poll of base metals analysts, with both set to rise in price over the next two years thanks to supply constraints and expected market deficits.

All the other base metals are expected to fall in price this year at least, with zinc and lead set to underperform over the next two years as those markets transition from supply shortfall to surplus.

Supply is the clear differentiator in the poll findings. Demand is widely expected to recover from the synchronised weakness of 2019. Or at least it was.

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OPINION EXCHANGE: Counterpoint: Why a green world will need more copper – by Ryan Sistad (Minneapolis Star Tribune – January 29, 2020)

http://www.startribune.com/

Ryan Sistad, of Duluth, is outreach coordinator for Better in Our Backyard. https://www.betterinourbackyard.com/

Supply and demand are subject to change — unpredictable change in policies or in the marketplace — which makes it incredibly important to have a plan in place to supply our economy with what it needs to grow and thrive.

When it comes to transitioning to a reduced-carbon or carbon-free energy economy, Minnesota is truly faced with this new supply and demand challenge. All of this makes the question asked Jan. 23 in “We don’t need more mining to go green” confusing.

The author asks: “[I]s it actually urgent to pull more copper and nickel out of the ground?” He then claims that in debates over mining copper and nickel in Minnesota “what goes largely undiscussed are the actual supply and demand forces around primary copper and nickel.”

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World’s biggest nickel miner has a plan for its crisis-ridden border town: here could come a hub for Arctic tourism – by Atle Staalesen (The Barents Observer – January 23, 2020)

https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/

There is a sense of crisis in the small town of Nikel located on the border to Norway and Finland. Here, most men and women have for the past three generations had their lives closely connected with the local nickel smelter.

Now, the cornerstone industry is closing and several hundred people will be dismissed in the course of the year. Locals fear that Nikel will be abandoned and turned into a ghost town.

However, local authorities and the nickel company assure that there will be new industries created that locals can be re-trained and re-employed in new jobs.

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Editorial counterpoint: McCollum’s mining-ban bill shortchanges environment review – by Frank Ongaro (Minneapolis Star Tribune – January 21, 2020)

http://www.startribune.com/

It’s no surprise that the Star Tribune Editorial Board supports U.S. Rep. Betty McCollum’s bill banning copper-nickel mining (“Bill offers vital BWCA protections,” Jan 19).

Unfortunately, McCollum’s bill is a desperate attempt to pre-emptively sidestep rigorous review processes already well-established under federal and state statutes to determine the feasibility and safety of mining projects on public lands.

All mining projects in our state — including taconite, iron ore and other extractive industry developments that power our economy and were explicitly left out of this bill — must undergo extensive environmental and feasibility studies. The statutes were enacted to assure a fair, predictable process built on scientific and technical evidence, not the shifting winds of politics.

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