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Eye on Mining: Exclusive interview with PolyMet CEO and President – by Staff (CBS 3 Duluth – January 29, 2019)

CBS 3 Duluth.com

HOYT LAKES, MN — After nearly 15 years and thousands of public comments PolyMet is making preparations to start construction on Minnesota’s first copper-nickel mine.

“During this upcoming construction season we’ll be in a position to be ready to begin the project,” said Jon Cherry, President and CEO of PolyMet. “2019 should be when we break ground and get going.”

Cherry has been at the forefront of this project for the last six and a half years and he said it hasn’t been without obstacles. “The challenge has been the length of time that it’s taken to get to this point.” PolyMet began the initial environmental review back in 2004.

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Nickel prices must rise to meet battery demand: AABC (Argus Media.com – January 28, 2019)

https://www.argusmedia.com/en/

Higher nickel prices are required to incentivise supply of nickel sulphate for electric vehicle (EV) batteries, particularly given lower cobalt prices, delegates heard today at the Advanced Automotive Battery Conference (AABC) in Strasbourg, France.

Supply of nickel increased by 7pc last year to about 2.19mn t, but demand increased by 8pc to 2.33mn t, increasing the deficit to 147,000t, from 131,000t in 2017, said Denis Sharypin, head of market research at Russian producer Norilsk Nickel.

The battery sector accounted for 124,000t of consumption last year, and while overall nickel demand is expected to increase at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 5pc to 2025, demand from the battery sector is estimated to climb at a CAGR of 18pc over the same period.

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Rickford promises progress in the Ring of Fire – by Ian Ross (Northern Ontario Business – January 24, 2018)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Indigenous communities to reap the rewards, benefits of natural resource development

Provincial cabinet minister Greg Rickford offered a stay-tuned response to the government’s plans to advance the construction of an access corridor to the Ring of Fire.

The minister of Energy, Northern Development and Mines, and Indigenous Affairs was in Sudbury to reaffirm the Ford government’s commitment to opening up the mineral deposits in the remote James Bay region.

In his Jan. 23 remarks at the Procurement, Employment, Partnerships Conference in Sudbury, Rickford referred to the James Bay mineral belt as a “region of prosperity” that’s been “complicated and overburdened with bureaucracy.”

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Access to Ring of Fire top priority for Noront; work continues on assessing Sault and Timmins – by Elaine Della-Mattia (Sault Star/Sudbury Star – January 24, 2019)

https://www.thesudburystar.com/

Without a road, Noront Resources cannot access the minerals found in the Ring of Fire. And that means moving forward too quickly on a processing facility is also not necessary.

So, the silence surrounding any decision by Noront Resources as to whether Sault Ste. Marie or Timmins will be the eventual host of a ferrochrome processing facility is nothing to panic about.

Mayor Christian Provenzano says he, along with Tom Vair, the city’s deputy CEO of community development and enterprise and EDC’s Dan Hollingsworth, met with Noront Resources officials in Toronto last Friday to get an update and offer any assistance.

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Ford clears the way for mine development, minister tells Sudbury audience – by Jim Moodie (Sudbury Star – January 24, 2019)

https://www.thesudburystar.com/

Mining projects in the region will now go forward with fewer hurdles and costs, a provincial cabinet minister assured participants of a resource development conference Wednesday.

“I want the industries in Ontario to know that they have an ally and a partner in this government,” said Greg Rickford, MPP for Kenora-Rainy River and minister of Energy, Northern Development and Mines, as well as minister of Indigenous Affairs. “That we’re committed to supporting and protecting and launching mining projects across Ontario.”

That includes expediting development in the Ring of Fire, which Rickford said is long-overdue. “In southern Ontario there are folks who still think there are active mine sites up there,” he said. “But despite the decade of talk and more than $20 million invested in this region, there are still disappointingly no shovels in the ground.”

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Miners waiting for higher nickel, metals prices – by Harold Carmichael (Sudbury Star – January 18, 2019)

https://www.thesudburystar.com/

The prices of nickel and other metals prices will recover, especially when more electric vehicles are built, mining analysts say. When they do, work at Levack Mine’s Morrison deposit will resume. Until then, KGHM Sudbury will keep the deposit in a care and maintenance mode, company officials say.

“It was very difficult,” Steve Dunlop, KGHM Sudbury general manager, said about meetings with employees held Wednesday to break the news. “Our concern is certainly with our employees. We are a fairly tight family. All of our workers have 10-plus years and the staff (members) have also been with us for quite a long time. It was very difficult.”

Slumping world nickel prices have prompted KGHM Sudbury to halt production at its Morrison deposit, putting an estimated 120 employees out of work as of late March when the mine goes into care and maintenance mode. A total of 87 of the affected 120 employees are members of United Steelworkers Local 2020.

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KGHM to shutter Sudbury-area mine – by Staff (Sudbury Star – January 17, 2019)

https://www.thesudburystar.com/

Blaming a long slump in metals prices, mining company KGHM on Wednesday announced it was shuttering its Levack Mine’s Morrison Deposit, throwing more than 100 people out of work.

“This is not an easy situation for the employees and families impacted,” general manager Steve Dunlop said in a release. “We are a small company and we all know each other quite well. This announcement hasn’t been a surprise for many of our people as this is a cyclical industry and we have been openly working with them on solutions to our financial challenges at Morrison — but that certainly doesn’t make this any easier.

“We were really hoping the mining sector would have recovered by now.” KGHM, a Polish-owned company, said the commodities market has been struggling and slow to recover, which is putting immense financial pressures on resource-based companies around the world and locally — as witnessed by cutbacks with other local operators in the past year.

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Commentary: Flash LME nickel squeeze may be a taste of things to come – by Andy Home (Reuters U.K. – January 16, 2019)

https://uk.reuters.com/

LONDON (Reuters) – Nickel bears have been sent running for cover by this week’s ferocious squeeze on the London Metal Exchange (LME). Short-dated time-spreads have flexed out to levels not seen in many years as a long-running decline in LME nickel stocks translates into cash-date tightness.

The resulting bear rout has halted a six-month downtrend in the outright nickel price. Bulls, however, should not get overly excited. There is as yet scant evidence this was anything other than a flash squeeze rather than a signal for higher prices.

But that is not to say there won’t be more such spread tension in the nickel market going forward. That nickel should be squeezed this week is no accident. Today is the LME’s “third-Wednesday” prime prompt date, the monthly clear-out of outstanding positions.

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Sudbury sees spike in international delegations: Mining innovation drawing business travellers to community – by Karen McKinley (Northern Ontario Business – January 15, 2019)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

The City of Greater Sudbury’s long history in mining is starting to have an effect on travel numbers, according to the city’s development corporation.

Over the past year more delegates have been coming to the city to not just meet and speak with companies and executives, but look at how the region has tackled mining as a whole, from prospecting and technology, to remediation and knowledge gathering.

“The numbers are increasing because Sudbury has a global reputation for being a mining innovation centre,” said Scott Rennie, project manager for Northern Ontario exports, Greater Sudbury Development Corporation in an interview.

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Vale in it for the long haul, says COO: Ricus Grimbeek talks future of nickel mining – by Karen McKinley (Northern Ontario Business – January 11, 2019)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

The mining industry is rapidly moving toward digital technology, and Sudbury could be at the heart of it with careful planning, said Vale’s Ricus Grimbeek. The chief operating officer for Canada, the U.K, and Asian refineries was the guest speaker at a Greater Sudbury Chamber of Commerce President’s Luncheon Series on Jan. 10 at the Radisson hotel.

His message was clear: Vale has a decades-long plan to stay in the region, as well as help the city become the global hub of digital mining as it transforms the industry.

“I was talking to somebody and they said they thought there was maybe five good years of mining left here, and asked what I thought and I said, no,” he said. “They asked if it was less or more.” For Vale, he said the mining company is looking at at least 20 to 30 more years of production in the basin alone.

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Sudbury’s future exciting — and electric — Vale COO – by Jim Moodie (Sudbury Star – January 11, 2019)

https://www.thesudburystar.com/

When asked recently if he thought Sudbury could expect another five good years of mining, the answer Ricus Grimbeek gave was ‘no.’ It wasn’t, however, because the chief operating officer for Vale’s North Atlantic Operations feels activity will dry up sooner than that.

“I had my poker face on,” he told a crowd gathered for a Chamber of Commerce luncheon on Thursday. “I believe there’s an amazing future here in Sudbury for the next couple of decades, not just the next five years.”

Driving that confidence is an expected boom in electric vehicles, which require copper and nickel for their batteries. Grimbeek, who hails from South Africa but now lives in Sudbury, said part of the reason he joined Vale was the opportunity “to absolutely impact the climate-change work we need to do as a society.”

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Greater Sudbury loses a mining legend, community activist – by Mary Katherine Keown (Sudbury Star – January 11, 2019)

https://www.thesudburystar.com/

Smiley is gone, but not forgotten. Sudbury lost a beloved father and husband recently, when Gord Slade passed away this week.

“Some of my earliest and most vivid memories were him taking us out into the bush — teaching us how to hunt, how to fish, teaching us all about nature,” son Fred Slade said Thursday. “He grew up in the bush, in northern Manitoba during the Depression.”

Born on Feb. 12, 1929, in Swan River, Man., Slade was one of 11 children. Most have passed away, but he is survived by his brother Johnny. Slade said growing up, they “lived off the land.” “They were 10 miles from the nearest town, on the side of the railroad tracks,” Slade said. In fact, the family’s homestead was so remote, Gord was homeschooled until he was 10 years old.

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Former Sudbury Falconbridge General Manager/President Gord Slade passes away (Sudbury Northern Life – January 9, 2019)

https://www.sudbury.com/

Gord Slade was a community leader

Gord Slade, a Sudbury community leader and philanthropist, died Jan. 8, just a few weeks before his 90th birthday.

Slade, a graduate of McGill University (1951), retired from Falconbridge Ltd. after 32 years of service in 1984. He held the post of president of the Canadian Nickel Division and general nanager, Sudbury Operations, after serving in areas of increasing responsibility.

In an interview for the Canadian Mining Hall of Fame, Slade said, “My objective was to be a shift boss, make $10,000 a year and be as well liked as my dad.”

After retirement, Slade worked as a mining consultant and continued to participate on the boards of several mining corporations.

He was a leader in the Canadian Institute of Mining (Sudbury Branch chair, and vice-president for District 3), and was a recipient of the CIM Fellowship Award (1997).

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Nickel Outlook 2019: No Boom, but Batteries Loom – by Scott Tibballs (Nickel Investor News – December 23, 2018)

Nickel Investor News

Nickel was as hard hit as other base metals in 2018 as investor sentiment bled the markets, leading to lower prices even as demand increased. Analysts predict that nickel prices will stay low through to 2019, barring any significant improvements in the seemingly deteriorating US-China trade rhetoric.

Additionally, the much-touted battery metal boom might well not happen in any meaningful way for nickel in the near term, as markets learn more about just how far the electric vehicle (EV) industry has to go, and how quickly consumers need to adopt new technology for the boom to materialize.

New developments throughout Australia and headaches for miners in the Philippines dominated supply-side news, while demand meant that over the year stockpiles were drawn down.

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Japan’s Sumitomo Metal sees global nickel deficit nearly halving in 2019 (Reuters U.S. – December 25, 2018)

https://www.reuters.com/

TOKYO, Dec 25 (Reuters) – A global nickel market deficit will nearly halve to 49,000 tonnes in 2019 from 93,000 tonnes this year on higher output of primary metals by global suppliers and of lower-grade nickel pig iron (NPI) in Indonesia, Sumitomo Metal Mining said on Tuesday.

Sumitomo Metal, Japan’s biggest nickel smelter, said global demand for nickel is seen increasing by 3.4 percent in 2019 from this year to 2.339 million tonnes, while supply is expected to climb 5.5 percent to 2.29 million tonnes.

“We expect to see higher demand for stainless steel and rechargeable batteries next year,” Masanori Ohyama, general manager of Sumitomo Metal’s nickel sales and raw materials department, told reporters.

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