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Low nickel prices exerting drag on Sudbury economy: Report – by Jim Moodie (Sudbury Star – June 4, 2024)

https://www.thesudburystar.com/

Employment should surpass pre-pandemic peak next year, however, and construction seems to be picking up

Nickel prices are down and the residential market in Sudbury has cooled, but the city’s population is expected to keep growing and lower interest rates will eventually spur more housing starts, a new report predicts. “The slowing national economy and soft commodity prices foreshadow weakness in Sudbury, home of the Big Nickel,” states an economic outlook from the Conference Board of Canada.

Worries about the near-term prospects for electric cars and their nickel-consuming batteries, along with rising Indonesian supply, have “pummelled nickel prices,” the board states. “Prices peaked in March 2022 and were roughly half that in March 2024.”

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Ring of Fire Road Needs to Start Construction Now Due to Geopolitics and Global Warming – Stan Sudol (June 1, 2024)

Without a doubt, the Ring of Fire camp and its many strategic minerals that include nickel, copper, platinum group metals, chromite and titanium – just to mention a few as explorers have just scratched the proverbial surface – is the most important mining discovery in Canadian history. It may even exceed the legendary Sudbury Basin some day.

Discovered in 2007, the region is located approximately 450 kms. northeast of Thunder Bay in the isolated and vast peatlands of Hudson Bay which itself is roughly the size of Norway but with only about 10,000 people. Contrary to fanatical ENGOs, sustainable mineral development and exploration practices will have minimal impact on the environment and provide the critical minerals needed to stop global warming. Australian miner Wyloo owns the Eagle’s Nest nickel/copper mine and various chromite deposits. Canadian owned Juno Corp is the other main explorer in the district and controls roughly 52 percent of the mine claims.

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Wyloo Canada to build Ring of Fire facility in Sudbury (updated) – by Staff (Sudbury Star – May 29, 2024)

https://www.thesudburystar.com/

Wyloo CEO Canada Kristan Straub says the facility would provide the missing piece in Canada’s aspirations to develop a domestic EV battery supply chain

Wyloo Canada announced this morning that it plans to build a downstream battery materials processing facility in Sudbury. It will cost up to $900 million to build and will create several hundred jobs, officials said at the EDome this morning.

It will cost up to $900 million to build and will create several hundred jobs, officials said at the EDome this morning. Wyloo said it has an agreement with the City of Greater Sudbury to secure land to build the battery materials processing facility. The new facility will fill a critical gap in Canada’s electric vehicle battery supply chain by establishing Canada’s first mine-to-precursor cathode active material (pCAM) integrated solution.

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WYLOO NEWS RELEASE: Canada’s First Downstream Battery Materials Processing Facility to be Built in Sudbury (May 29, 2024)

GREATER SUDBURY, May 29, 2024 – Wyloo has entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the City of Greater Sudbury to secure a parcel of land to build a downstream battery materials processing facility. The new facility will fill a critical gap in Canada’s electric vehicle (EV) battery supply chain by establishing Canada’s first mine-to-precursor cathode active material (pCAM) integrated solution.

Wyloo CEO Canada Kristan Straub said the facility would provide the missing piece in Canada’s aspirations to develop a domestic EV battery supply chain, by producing low-carbon nickel sulphate and nickel-dominant pCAM, key ingredients for EV batteries.

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Sudbury becomes a major nickel producer – by Ailbhe Goodbody (CIM Magazine – May 22, 2024)

https://magazine.cim.org/en/

In this edition of Mining the Archives, we examine the development of Sudbury as a Canadian nickel hub, which later became an example of how pollution-impacted lands can be reclaimed successfully

The Sudbury Basin was formed by a meteorite impact approximately 1.85 billion years ago, which made mineral-rich magmas rise from deeper in the earth to create the valuable mineral resource deposits in the region.

Robert C. Stanley [CIM Bulletin, July 1927] stated that the first authentic discovery of nickel in the Sudbury district was recorded about 1856. “Sudbury was at that time the terminus of the Canadian Pacific Railway, from which point construction was being pushed westward,” he said. “In the course of this work, a cutting was made which passed through an outcrop of copper ore that was later to be the Murray mine. Prospectors after copper immediately flocked into the surrounding country, and a very large number of claims were staked.”

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Ontario beefs up supply chain funding for critical minerals – by Len Gillis (Sudbury.com – May 6, 2024)

https://www.sudbury.com/

Mines Minister George Pirie confirms additional funding will be added to the Critical Minerals Innovation Fund over the next three years to boost research into sustainable extraction of new metals required to support the battery electric vehicle industry

Ontario Mines Minister George Pirie said today Ontario is committed to strengthening the province’s critical minerals strategy in the global race to ensure there is a stable supply chain for battery electric vehicles by spending millions in new science and technology to help do that. He said the effort is already underway in Sudbury to develop new ways to procure more critical minerals.

Pirie said the Ontario government will be spending $15 million over the next three years to expand the Ontario Critical Minerals Innovation Fund (CMIF), which is a re-announcement of the funding increase that was announced as part of the Ontario budget earlier this year.

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Nickel 28 fires founders on ‘serious misconduct’ that they deny – by Jacob Lorinc (Bloomberg News – May 6, 2024)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

Nickel 28 Capital Corp. said it has fired its founders, including chief executive officer Anthony Milewski, after an investigation uncovered “serious misconduct” — claims the ousted management team says are untrue and part of a years-long battle for control at the Canadian mining firm.

The nickel and cobalt producer removed Milewski, along with president Justin Cochrane and chief financial officer Conor Kearns, with immediate effect, it said Monday, after the board reviewed findings made by an independent special committee. The investigation found evidence the management team had breached their duties and repeatedly lacked judgment, the board said.

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Column: Mining giants Vale, Glencore failing Greater Sudbury – by John Caruso (Sudbury Star – May 1, 2024)

https://www.thesudburystar.com/

John Caruso is a Sudbury businessman and a concerned citizen.

Canada and Ontario are willing to sell off our non-renewable resources with little concern for the host community

There is something wrong with this picture: As our city moves toward some historic investments in quality-of-life assets, concerns are being raised regarding long-term debts being incurred and their impact on residential taxes.

I strongly believe that the planned investments in a new event centre and cultural hub at Tom Davies Square are critical investments in our ability to attract and retain population and economic growth.

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First Quantum to shut Ravensthorpe nickel mine – by Cecilia Jamasmie (Northern Miner – April 29, 2024)

https://www.northernminer.com/

Canadian miner First Quantum Minerals (TSX: FM) has decided to close its Ravensthorpe nickel operation in Western Australia. The ceasing of operations at the mine this week will cut around 330 jobs, Australia’s ABC News reported on Monday, citing a company statement.

“Despite our best efforts to maintain operations by transitioning to a new operating strategy that involved ceasing mining activities, processing stockpiles and altering its approach to production, the site is incurring significant current and projected losses,” First Quantum said in a separate statement.

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INSG’s latest forecasts cold comfort for nickel producers – by Andy Home (Reuters – April 25, 2024)

https://www.reuters.com/

London, April 25 (Reuters) – Nickel has rallied hard this month, clawing back some of the territory lost during its relentless price slide over the course of 2023. London Metal Exchange (LME) three-month nickel touched $19,775 per metric ton on Monday, the highest it has traded since September last year.

Last at $19,045 per ton, nickel is up by 15% since the start of the year, the third strongest performance after tin and copper. Sentiment has improved as low prices have exacted a rising toll on nickel producers. Multiple operators have closed or curtailed capacity due to the rapid rise of lower-cost Indonesian production.

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Nornickel moves production to China to circumvent sanctions – by Thomas Nilsen (Barents Observer – April 24, 2024)

https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/

War sanctions bite hard on Russia’s Arctic mining and metallurgical giant producing nickel and copper on the Kola Peninsula and in Norilsk.

Vladimir Potanin, the main shareholder of mega-polluter Nornickel, admits in a remarkable statement with Kremlin’s information agency Interfax that Western sanctions reduces the company’s revenue by up to 20%.

To circumnavigate sanctions, Potanin says Nornickel plans to establish a joint venture with a Chinese company and move parts of the copper smelting to China. It was earlier in April that the United States and United Kingdom imposed sanctions on nonferrous metals from Russia.

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Magna gets the all-clear to begin test mining in Sudbury – by Staff (Northern Ontario Business – April 23, 2024)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Hometown mine builder on a fast pace to put former INCO asset back into early production by year’s end

Seventeen months after acquiring a dormant INCO nickel and copper mine in Sudbury, Magna Mining said it’s ready to begin test mining later this year.

The hometown mine developer announced April 23 it has all the required approvals and permits in place to begin advanced exploration, both on the surface and underground, at its Crean Hill Mine project located in the southwest corner of the Sudbury basin.

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The nickel price crash and the road to recovery in Australia – by Annabel Cossins-Smith (Mining Technology – April 23, 2024)

https://www.mining-technology.com/

Miners in Australia are feeling the brunt of the global nickel price crash, from mine closures to forecast reductions and government intervention. How did things get so bad and is recovery possible? Annabel Cossins-Smith investigates.

The global nickel market has been volatile for years now. The price rollercoaster of 2022 saw prices for the metal soar, plummet and then soar again in the space of eight months. This instability prompted the London Metal Exchange (LME) to suspend nickel trading altogether in March 2022, when global prices initially rallied more than 250% in one day, and later to begin “enhanced monitoring” of nickel to ensure trading activity was fair and to prevent market distortion.

More recently, the nickel market has experienced an unprecedented, drawn-out price slump that has put operations around the world – and particularly in Australia – in jeopardy. A significant oversupply of cheap, low-grade nickel pig iron (NPI) coming almost entirely from China and Indonesia, is the key cause of the price slump. Combined, the two countries produce around 70% of the world’s nickel. Indonesia alone accounted for roughly half of global production in 2023, which is expected to rise significantly by the end of the decade.

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Chinese Nickel Billionaire Boosts Australian Miner in Indonesia – by Eddie Spence and Alfred Cang (Bloomberg News – April 22, 2024)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

(Bloomberg) — A little-known Australian company is becoming the Western face of a Chinese nickel behemoth. In under a decade, Nickel Industries Ltd. has gone from a relatively small miner to the world’s sixth-biggest producer of a metal used in products from batteries to stainless steel.

Riding a Chinese-led boom in Indonesia’s nickel sector, it owns or has stakes in five plants in the country that churn out more of the commodity than household names like BHP Group Ltd.

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Canada and allies considering trade measures against China and Indonesia over manipulation of nickel market, Freeland says – by Niall McGee (Globe and Mail – April 24, 2024)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland says Canada and its allies are weighing taking trade action against China and Indonesia in the nickel market, as the two Asian countries tighten their collective grip in the critical mineral.

Indonesia has gone from supplying 7 per cent of the global output of nickel to 55 per cent in the past decade, with much of that new production controlled by China-based mining companies with ties to the authoritarian Beijing government.

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