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World’s Top Miner Embracing the Boom in Electric Car Batteries – by David Stringer (Bloomberg News – October 16, 2018)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

BHP Billiton Ltd. is boosting sales of the top-quality nickel that’s needed for electric vehicle batteries, another sign the world’s biggest miner is targeting more opportunities in the booming sector.

Sales of refined nickel, a category that includes the premium products used for battery production, jumped 18 percent in the three months to Sept. 30 from a year earlier, according to a statement Wednesday. The company has begun offering more detailed data on nickel and cobalt production amid investor interest in its exposure to the rise of EVs.

BHP’s Nickel West operation in Western Australia aims to sell 90% of output to the battery sector by the end of 2019, switching away from a traditional customer base in the stainless-steel market.

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Brazilian miner Vale will not chase big acquisitions – by Neil Hume (Financial Times – October 16, 2018)

https://www.ft.com/

Brazilian mining company Vale will deploy its cash wisely and “does not need” to chase big acquisitions because it has a big opportunity to grow organically in nickel.

Speaking at the FT Commodities Global Summit in Rio de Janeiro on Tuesday, Vale chief executive Fabio Schvartsman said big dealmaking “adventures” were not on his agenda and any acquisitions would be small bolt on deals, probably in iron ore.

“We don’t need to do it given the potential of our nickel business,” he said. Although Vale is best known for its huge iron ore business, it is also the world’s biggest producer of nickel, a metal that will be needed in greater quantities as electric vehicles go mainstream.

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Electric vehicles could increase demand for Thompson, Manitoba nickel, says North Atlantic mining director – by Ian Graham (Thompson Citizen – October 11, 2018)

https://www.thompsoncitizen.net/

Increasing demand for battery-powered vehicles could be the key to increased demand and prices for nickel, Vale’s director of North Atlantic mining operations told Thompson Chamber of Commerce members Oct. 3 while he was in town for Manitoba Operations’ annual open house.

But achieving price stability is a key to convincing the company’s board to invest in further developing Thompson’s mines to take advantage of that growing market, said Alistair Ross.

“We believe that society is on a path that they will not deflect from at least in the next 10 to 20 years and that is we’re not going to continue with internal combustion engines,” Ross said. “The answer to no more ICE – internal combustion engines – is battery electric.”

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Batteries Juicing the Nickel Market: LME Nickel Sulfate Contracts in 2019? (Investing News Network – October 8, 2018)

Investing News Network

This INNspired Article is brought to you by Tartisan Nickel Corp.

The recently announced LME nickel sulfate contracts under consideration are a strong indication that the nickel sulfate market and upstream nickel sulfide market are facing considerable growth. Annual sales of electric vehicles are expected to climb from 1.1 million in 2017 to 30 million by 2030. Each one requiring a battery chock full of base metals, especially lithium, cobalt and nickel sulfate.

The price of nickel has climbed nearly 60 percent since mid-2015 on an improved nickel demand forecast, mainly from the steel sector. The surging demand for electric vehicles (EVs) and in turn base metals such as nickel is expected to push those prices up further.

The impressive growth outlook for battery materials has prompted the London Metals Exchange (LME) to consider offering a suite of battery materials futures contracts in 2019 — including lithium, cobalt and nickel sulfate — to better take advantage of the booming EV market.

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Vale touts collective future of mining – by Karen McKinley (Northern Ontario Business – October 5, 2018)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Company executive gives update on progress of technology upgrades focusing on Sudbury operation

The hive mentality is coming to mining, with the intention of making the industry more efficient, safer and ultimately sustainable. Vale Canada’s progress in that area was the subject of the season opening meeting of the Sudbury chapter of the Canadian Institute of Mining on Sept. 20.

Samantha Espley, Vale’s general manager of mines and mills, technical services department in Sudbury, gave the featured presentation on the company’s road map for its operations.

The physical and technological changes are part of a grander plan to change the behaviour of how different sections work in the mines, bringing them together to work as one large hub, all sharing data to make operational decisions in real time.

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How Ontario can get the Ring of Fire back on track – by Josh Dehaas (TV Ontario – October 4, 2018)

https://tvo.org/

ANALYSIS: Doug Ford says he’ll hop on a bulldozer if necessary — but a recent court decision about the Trans Mountain Pipeline shows there’s an easier way, writes Josh Dehaas

In 2013, Tony Clement, then the federal minister responsible for northern Ontario’s economic development, described a smattering of chromite and nickel deposits in the far north as Ontario’s answer to the Alberta oilsands. Ever since, people everywhere from Timmins to Sault Ste. Marie have been buzzing about the possibility that new mining and smelting jobs will spring up in the economically depressed region.

But the location makes things complicated. The deposits are more than 300 kilometres from the nearest highway or rail line, and they’re also on or near the traditional territory of nine First Nations communities, which have to be consulted before any project can proceed.

Some are worried that the Federal Court of Appeal’s August decision about the Trans Mountain pipeline, which emphasized the importance of such consultations, will slow progress on the Ring of Fire or give First Nations a de facto veto over resource projects — but legal experts say that’s not the case. In fact, they say it may actually provide a roadmap for the Ford government to get the stalled project back on track.

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Vale issues update on momentous year in Thompson mining history – by Ian Graham (Thompson Citizen – September 27, 2018)

https://www.thompsoncitizen.net/

Vale Manitoba Operations’ 2017-18 update entitled “A New Era” comes at a time when the mining company has ceased smelting and refining operations in Thompson after nearly 60 years of integrated nickel production.

The first Bessemer nickel matte was produced in the smelter on Sept. 10, 1960 and the first official production of nickel cathodes from the refinery occurred on March 25, 1961. The last anodes were poured in the smelter on July 8 of this year and the last nickel cathode was pulled on July 16. By that time, the new concentrate load-out facility was already complete, with the first shipment of concentrate having been loaded onto a truck bound for Sudbury June 24.

Over their lifetimes, the smelter and refinery produced nearly than 2.5 million tonnes of electro-nickel. “The decision in 2010 to decommission the smelter and refinery gave plenty of time for our people, the company and
the City of Thompson to prepare,” said a message from North Atlantic and Asia refineries director Ricus Grimbeek in the report.

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Vale: Embracing The Electric Vehicle Revolution (Seeking Alpha – September 24, 2018)

https://seekingalpha.com/

Vale’s (VALE) iron ore operations have been by far the main driver of the company’s performance. Because of this, the Base Metals division tends to fly under the radar, despite Vale being the world’s largest producer of nickel.

However, Vale has big plans for its nickel and copper divisions, and the Brazilian company has identified the rise of electric vehicle and renewables as an important growth driver, especially in nickel. The main focus of this article will be the nickel developments, but we will also touch on copper. Both should help the Base Metals division contribute meaningfully to earnings from 2020.

Base Metals’ contribution is still modest, but rising

Investors can be forgiven for paying more attention to the Ferrous Minerals division, which includes iron ore and related metals. This segment is by far the main contributor to Vale’s performance. The company’s latest quarterly publication, for Q2 2018, confirms the weight of Ferrous Minerals:

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U.S. Sanctions Are Driving Russian Billionaires Into Putin’s Arms – by Yuliya Fedorinova, Ilya Arkhipov and Evgenia Pismennaya (Bloomberg News – September 20, 2018)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

The Trump administration is helping Vladimir Putin achieve a goal that’s eluded him for almost two decades—getting Russia’s billionaires to start repatriating some of their assets.

Relatively muted sanctions imposed during the Obama era over the conflict in Ukraine have only widened in scope and severity since Trump took office last year. The unpredictability of both the White House and Congress is forcing Russians to move money into state-run banks and rejig the offshore superstructure that’s sheltered fortunes here since communism’s collapse.

Tycoons and their executives say the rush to move assets beyond the reach of the U.S. Treasury started with the biggest enterprises in April, when Oleg Deripaska and Viktor Vekselberg and their companies lost billions within hours of being hit with the harshest penalties to date.

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RPT-COLUMN-Nickel’s “electric premium” crushed by trade tensions – by Andy Home (Reuters U.S. – September 18, 2018)

https://www.reuters.com/

LONDON, Sept 18 (Reuters) – Nickel has finally succumbed to the base metals price rout. It is still the best year-to-date performer among the core six metals traded on the London Metal Exchange (LME)

But at a current $12,400 per tonne, LME three-month metal is, like the rest of the pack, now trading below year-start levels. The excitement around the potential boost to nickel demand from its use in electric vehicle batteries hasn’t been completely dispelled.

But the “electric premium” in the price has been crushed by the broader market concerns about the escalating trade stand-off between the United States and China.

The tensions between nickel’s electric future and the metal’s current stainless steel reality are all too evident and if anything are going to become more acute the further the price falls.

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Glencore awards Onaping Depth contract to Cementation Canada – by Staff (Sudbury Star – September 19, 2018)

https://www.thesudburystar.com/

Canada Inc. said Tuesday it has been awarded the design and construction of the new internal underground shaft for the Onaping Depth Project at Craig Mine. The mine is part of Glencore’s Sudbury Integrated Nickel Operations (Sudbury INO).

“Onaping Depth has been an iconic project for us and we have worked very closely with Sudbury INO over the years to evaluate and provide the shaft designs and methodology that combine safety with value,” Roy Slack, president of Cementation Canada, said in a release. “We are thrilled that the project is going ahead and are very excited to be Sudbury INO’s main contractor and design engineer for this shaft project.”

Cementation Canada did not say how much the contract was worth. Glencore, however, has freed up $700 million for Onaping Depth. Production at Onaping Depth expected to begin in 2023 — and go fully online by 2025.

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New Voisey’s Bay royalty calculation agreed on – by Marleny Arnoldi (MiningWeekly.com – September 17, 2018)

http://www.miningweekly.com/

TSX-listed Altius Minerals and Nasdaq-listed Royal Gold have entered into an agreement with Vale Canada to settle litigation related to the calculation of the royalty in respect of all concentrates produced from the Voisey’s Bay mine, in Newfoundland and Labrador.

The Voisey’s Bay 3% net smelter return royalty is directly owned by the Labrador Nickel Royalty partnership, of which Altius is a 10% owner and a subsidiary of Royal Gold is a 90% owner.

The parties agreed to a new method for calculating the royalty regarding concentrates processed at Vale’s Long Harbour processing plant, which will be effective for all Voisey’s Bay mine production after April 1 this year.

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Canadian mining industry says goodbye to ‘turnaround man’ Bill James – by Robin de Angelis (CBC News Sudbury – September 17, 2018)

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

The man credited with making mining company Falconbridge Ltd. a success in the 1980s has passed away. William “Bill” James died on September 4, at the age of 89.

James took the helm of Falconbridge at a time when the company was losing millions of dollars each week due to flagging metal prices. He cut jobs and corporate spending, eventually making the company an attractive target for a takeover for Noranda.

Ed Thompson, a board member with the Canadian Mining Hall of Fame, remembers working with James for almost 50 years. “He was a very forthright, honest man,” Thompson recalled.

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$1 billion later: Vale completes its Clean AER project: Superstack to be decommissioned as miner reduces emissions by 85% – by Arron Pickard (Sudbury Northern Life – September 14, 2018)

https://www.sudbury.com/

The largest single environmental investment in Greater Sudbury is now complete. Vale celebrated the completion of its $1-billion Clean Atmospheric Emissions Reduction project on Friday, achieving an 85-per-cent reduction in previous sulphur dioxide emissions and a 40-per-cent reduction in metal particulate emissions.

Dave Stefanuto, director of projects for Vale’s North Atlantic Operations, said the completion of the has been 10 years in the making, and was no small undertaking. This size and scope of the project was massive, considering the company continued to operate with no interruptions.

“We began in earnest in 2008, and broke ground in 2012, but the project has evolved over the years,” Stefanuto said. “We decided to move to a single furnace operation in 2013, which resulted in a greater reduction in emissions we had originally estimated.”

There are three core elements to the project: new converters in the smelter facility; the new wet gas cleaning plant, and; a new secondary baghouse facility.

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Vale celebrates completion of emissions reduction project – by Harold Carmichael (Sudbury Star – September 15, 2018)

 

https://www.thesudburystar.com/

Scientist David Pearson still has a vivid memory of a “bad air day” when he was getting out of his car at Laurentian University in the early 1970s, prior to the Inco Superstack being built.

“I ran from my car to get in the building,” he recalled, during a press conference Friday at the Vale Copper Cliff Smelting Complex. “It was not a pleasant experience.” Friday’s event marked the end of the mining company’s six-year, $1-billion Clean Atmospheric Emissions Reduction project.

It involved the construction of two new converters, which have special hoods to capture sulphur-dioxide gas, and a new wet-gas cleaning plant that captures 85 per cent of the sulphur-dioxide emissions previously emitted by the Superstack.

As well, Clean AER introduced a baghouse/fan building that acts like a giant vacuum cleaner, reducing metals particulate emissions by 40 per cent, and a pair of new 450-foot stacks that will be more efficient to operate than the Superstack.

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