Nickel – Page 64 – Republic of Mining

Diggers & Dealers 2018: Cost hurdle for nickel developers chasing battery cash, says Western Areas – by Josh Chiat (The West Australia – August 7, 2018)

August 8, 2018

https://thewest.com.au/

Western Areas managing director Dan Lougher has fired a warning shot to nickel laterite developers, questioning whether the oncoming battery boom will make high-cost projects viable.

The euphoria around the potential for lithium ion batteries to transform demand for their highest volume ingredient and rising prices for cobalt have prompted owners of a string of low-grade lateritic projects to dust them off. Large-scale nickel laterite mines can be costly to both build and process, often relying on a chemical-intensive process called high-pressure acid leach to extract the resource.

Mr Lougher told delegates at the Diggers and Dealers forum in Kalgoorlie-Boulder today the battery market would be a growing contributor to nickel demand over the next decade, which was still dominated by steel makers, but that high-grade nickel sulphide producers would be the quickest to scale up for the new market.

Independence boss aims for ‘multiple Novas’ – by Josh Chiat (The West Australian – August 7, 2018)

August 8, 2018

https://thewest.com.au/

Independence Group managing director Peter Bradford says news that multimillionaire prospector Mark Creasy has made a new nickel discovery north of the Nova nickel mine has validated his belief in the potential of the Fraser Range in the Goldfields to become a major mining district.

Mr Bradford told delegates at the Diggers and Dealers mining forum in Kalgoorlie-Boulder yesterday that IGO was looking to find “multiple Novas” across 15,000sqkm of exploration tenure around the new operations, spending millions on exploration.

Mr Creasy, who is now a major shareholder of IGO after its $1.8 billion takeover of Nova founder Sirius Resources, revealed his “Silver Knight” nickel-copper find in a public mineralisation report last month after his company Great Southern Nickel applied for a new mining lease.

BHP boosts nickel mining, exploration investment amid electric vehicle boom – by Melanie Burton (Reuters U.S. – August 6, 2018)

August 7, 2018

https://www.reuters.com/

KALGOORLIE, Australia (Reuters) – Global miner BHP is plowing more investment into nickel mine development and exploration in Western Australia, seeking to secure its own supply of a key material in batteries needed to meet booming demand for electric cars.

BHP is building what is expected to be the world’s largest battery-grade nickel sulphate plant on the outskirts of Perth and is boosting output to be “as self-sufficient as possible”, asset president Eduard Haegel, told Reuters on the sidelines of the Diggers and Dealers mining conference in Kalgoorlie.

Nickel is in increasingly hot demand in new battery technologies that mean cars can travel further on a single charge. Using more nickel also cuts costs by reducing the amount of expensive cobalt, a mainstay of current electric vehicle (EV) battery technology.

Murky waters: Deep-sea miners say they offer a clean, ethical way to harvest precious metals for a low-carbon future. Environmentalists aren’t convinced. – by Janet Davison (CBC News – August 5, 2018)

August 4, 2018

https://newsinteractives.cbc.ca/

They don’t look like much at first, the black, potato-shaped blobs that lie scattered on the seabed, deep beneath the surface of the Pacific Ocean. But as is so often the case, looks can be deceiving.

These nodules, and the metals that lie within them, are at the heart of a new and potentially lucrative mining frontier.

Metals like cobalt, copper, nickel and manganese have been mined on land for years, but going deep into the ocean to find them is becoming an increasingly tantalizing prospect. Companies like DeepGreen Metals and Nautilus Minerals — both with Canadian ties — have invested millions in preparation to raise the minerals from the seabed.

The metals in question are found in three sources: those potato-sized nodules; seafloor massive sulphide (SMS) deposits around hydrothermal vents; and cobalt-rich crusts near underwater mountains.

Vale’s Long Goodbye: 2,814 days adding up to 7 years, 8 months and 15 days – by John Barker (Soundings John Barker – July 31, 2018)

August 1, 2018

https://soundingsjohnbarker.wordpress.com/

The Sword of Damocles dangles no longer. Today is the day Tito Martins, then president and chief executive officer of Vale Canada and executive director of base metals for the Brazilian international parent company, told us was coming on Nov. 17, 2010 – 2,814 days ago, or expressed another way, seven years, eight months and 15 days ago.

The day the Thompson smelter and refinery officially cease production and Thompson ceases to be a fully integrated nickel operation for the first time since March 1961.

Mind you, July 31, 2018 – today – is something of an arbitrary bookkeeping sort of marker. At the time of Martins’ 2010 announcement, the closing date was announced as 2015, so we’ve had about three extra years of nickel smelting and refining. As for the actual ramp down, the last furnace tap from the one remaining furnace in operation and anode cast from the smelter and the last cathode pulled from the refinery happened earlier this month.

Nickel price increases likely to put pressure on plastic automotive components says UK manufacturer – by Leanne Taylor (British Plastics and Rubber – July 31, 2018)

August 1, 2018

https://www.britishplastics.co.uk/

A UK manufacturer of a metal-plated plastic automotive components says the increasing price of nickel is likely to put pressure on the price of parts.

David Brereton, Sales Director for Essex-based Borough Ltd, says the steady upward price increase of nickel could create “a knock-on effect” when it comes to the manufacturing process. “We have worked hard over decades to perfect our ability to chrome plate plastic components and nickel plays a critical role,” explained Brereton.

“To make the plastic components electronically conductive, we deposit a layer of nickel over a catalytic palladium layer during a chemical dipping process, before we can add the copper, more nickel layers and chrome that ensure the quality finish top marques demand.

Dangerous sulfur dioxide levels at Kola nickel plant are dropping, cheering environmentalists – by Anna Kireeva and Charles Digges (Bellona.org – July 31, 2018)

August 1, 2018

http://bellona.org/

Dangerous emissions from the Kola Mining and Metallurgy Company dropped by nearly 9 percent during 2017, says data from the company, marking, according to its figures, a significant drop in pollution over the previous year.

The data were published in the annual report of Norilsk Nickel, the Kola enterprise’s Siberia-based parent company and one of the world’s largest nickel producers, which has long been a focus of environmental ire.

Last year’s drop in sulfur dioxide will come as welcome news to the Murmansk Region and neighboring Scandinavia, which have long suffered pollution from the nickel refining works –– as well as decades of broken promises to bring it to heel.

[Minnesota Mining] Economist’s View: Mining generates 10 times more economic value than leisure, hospitality – by John Phelan (Duluth News Tribune – July 29, 2018)

July 30, 2018

http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/

John Phelan is an economist at the Center of the American Experiment (americanexperiment.org), based in Golden Valley, Minn.

This month, the News Tribune published a commentary by Sandra B. Zellmer and Alexandra B. Klass of the Center for Progressive Reform. In it, they argued against Twin Metals and the possibility of sulfide-ore copper-nickel mining in Northeastern Minnesota (Professors’ View: “U-turn on Twin Metals a massive giveaway of irreplaceable public resources”).

“(A Twin Metals) mine promises to be an economic loser,” they contended, saying that, “A 2017 study by Key Log Economics showed that copper-nickel mining in the Boundary Waters watershed would cost Northeastern Minnesota $288 million in lost revenue from visitor spending and lost property values amounting to about $509 million.
The 4,490 local jobs at risk would be 10 times the number of new mining jobs expected to be created, according to a study from the School of Business and Economics at University of Minnesota Duluth. The total tab? Between $402 million and $1.6 billion in lost annual income.”

Vale increases profits in second quarter – by Staff (Sudbury Star/Reuters – July 27, 2018)

July 27, 2018

http://www.thesudburystar.com/

Vale recorded a second-quarter profit of US$76 million, compared to $16 million a year ago. Despite the improvement, the figure fell far short of a Reuters consensus estimate of $1.265 billion and the $1.590 billion in profit notched in the first three months of 2018.

Reuters said the weaker-than-expected rise in quarterly net income was the result of a big currency hit Vale took, despite higher production.

Adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, a good indicator of operating profit, surged 43 per cent to $3.9 billion, matching analysts’ estimates, Reuters said.

[Manitoba Mining] A new era begins; how long will it last? (Thompson Citizen – July 25, 2018)

July 26, 2018

http://www.thompsoncitizen.net/

With smelting and refining operations at Vale’s Manitoba Operations shut down never to return, the mining industry in Thompson has entered a new era, one in which the only processing to be done will consist of milling and which will see Thompson act as a feeder operation for smelters and refineries in Sudbury, Ontario, and Voisey’s Bay in Newfoundland and Labrador.

This will mark the first time since construction was completed nearly 60 years ago that Vale (and previously Inco) operations will not be fully integrated, taking nickel from the ore extracted underground to a finished product, instead just to a nickel concentrate that is shipped out from a new load-out facility that was recently completed.

A new era has also begun in a different way with the phasing out of Mark Scott’s position as vice-president of Manitoba Operations, with July 20 having been his last day on the job. Once again, for the first time since mining and associated operations began in Thompson in the late 1950s to early 1960s, they will not be overseen by a local head of operations but managed as a satellite mine of Vale’s nickel operations in Sudbury, with Alistair Ross in charge of all of the company’s Canadian mining operations.

The Timberjay takes on the nation’s most heated mining battle – by Stephanie Pearson (Columbia Journalism Review – July 25, 2018)

July 26, 2018

https://www.cjr.org/

“MINNESOTA AS TRUMP COUNTRY? DON’T BET ON IT,” Marshall Helmberger, publisher of The Timberjay, headlined his June 27 editorial, which ran a week after President Trump held a rally in the nearby city of Duluth. Like most of Helmberger’s editorials, the piece was expansive, gutsy, thoroughly researched, and left of center.

It was also written from the heart of the Iron Range, a taconite and iron-ore mining stronghold President Trump has zeroed-in on. There’s a hotly contested US House seat up for grabs in Minnesota’s Eighth Congressional District, where Trump stumped for Republican candidate Pete Stauber.

And the Trump administration is quietly dismantling environmental regulations to pave the way for Twin Metals, a subsidiary owned by Chilean conglomerate Antofagasta, to build a controversial sulfide-ore copper-nickel mine near the edge of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.

NEWS RELEASE: Vale Doubles Exploration Efforts in Greater Sudbury Residents can expect to see aerial surveys this summer

July 19, 2018

Sudbury, ON — Vale’s Sudbury Operations has nearly doubled its surface and underground exploration budget from approximately $22 million CAD last year to nearly $42 million CAD this year. This includes approximately 30 active exploration projects and 13 drill rigs currently operating in the Greater Sudbury Area.

This increased exploration activity represents Vale’s renewed focus on resource discovery and development to secure our long-term success in the Sudbury Basin and deliver on our future life of mine plans.

Greater Sudbury residents may encounter Vale’s exploration crews working in the field at various exploration sites across the Sudbury Basin this summer. These crews will be working with heavy equipment and residents are asked to remain clear of these active work sites for their safety.

[Kambalda, Australia] Mining town faces loss of bank, doctor, petrol station as it fights for survival – by Jarrod Lucas (Australian Broadcasting Corporation – July 15, 2018)

July 16, 2018

http://www.abc.net.au/

What would happen if your town lost its bank, doctor’s surgery, and petrol station within the space of a few months? That is the prospect facing the residents of a West Australian mining town which boomed during the 1960s and 70s but is now facing a fight for survival.

Kambalda was built on the discovery of nickel in 1966 and Australia’s first nickel sulphide mine, known as the Silver Lake shaft. Fly-in, fly-out was not allowed in the early days, but it has slowly crept into the community in recent years with the construction of a workers’ camp.

The decade since the global financial crisis struck has not been kind to Kambalda, with its population falling from 2,689 to 2,539 between the 2006 and 2016 Census polls.

Town hit by closure of four nickel mines

Electric vehicle demand will double nickel price – as soon as 2022 – by Frik Els (Mining.com – July 9, 2018)

July 10, 2018

http://www.mining.com/

After a gravity-defying run, nickel has now also succumbed to weakness in the industrial metals complex as global trade fears mount, declining to $14,125 per tonne on Monday.

The metal, mainly used in stainless steel manufacture, is down 10% or more than $1,600 a tonne from more than three-year highs hit on the LME a month ago.

Nickel is still up by 62% compared to its June 2017 lows, mostly on the back of falling inventories in top consumer China. On the Shanghai Futures Exchange nickel stocks have dropped for 24 straight weeks while LME warehouses are the emptiest since mid-2014.

Cobalt, lithium and nickel are booming due to China’s insatiable appetite for electric vehicles – by Jane Li (South China Morning Post – June 30, 2018)

July 4, 2018

http://www.scmp.com/

World prices of cobalt, lithium and nickel are booming as China’s insatiable need for the battery packs used in electric vehicles drove up demand, recreating the economic bonanza that fuelled commodity-exporting countries a decade ago.

The price of lithium, a soft silvery white metal usually mined from brines, has soared by more than 300 per cent in the past two years. The price of cobalt, mostly mined as a by-product of nickel and copper, surged 129 per cent last year while nickel surged 4.6 per cent to a two-year high in London.

At the centre of the boom is China’s support for developing electric vehicles (EV) to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases. Electric vehicles made up a mere 2.3 per cent of the 30 million vehicles produced last year, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers. That proportion may quintuple to 12 per cent by 2025, according to a forecast by JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s analyst Nick Lai.