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Nickel

Tesla Truck Supercharges Hopes for Boom in Battery Metals Demand – by Mark Burton (Bloomberg News – November 17, 2017)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

Tesla Inc.’s plans to roll out an all-electric big rig have given a fresh jolt to the outlook for battery metals that will go into powering the truck founder Elon Musk is calling “The Beast.”

Banks including Goldman Sachs Group Inc., UBS Group AG and Bank of America Corp. are already forecasting a surge in demand for battery metals like nickel as sales of electric cars ramp up over the next decade. Usage could jump even higher if trucking firms start switching diesel fleets for battery-powered ones.

“This is a game changer,” said Anthony Milewski, chairman and chief executive officer of Cobalt 27 Capital Corp., an investment vehicle providing price exposure to a stockpile of cobalt, which has spiked in the past year in response to booming projections for usage in electric vehicles.

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[Norilsk] Metals Billionaire to Win Whether Electric Cars Boom or Bust – by Yuliya Fedorinova (Bloomberg News – November 21, 2017)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

There are two major reasons mining billionaire Vladimir Potanin is within a hair’s breadth of regaining his ranking as Russia’s richest tycoon this year.

One is higher prices for nickel used in batteries as metals traders bet electric vehicles are the future of transportation. The other is a jump in palladium on wagers that gasoline cars will be here for a long time yet.

They’ve boosted the value of Potanin’s 30 percent in MMC Norilsk Nickel PJSC, the top miner of both metals, lifting his net worth 12 percent this year to $19 billion. They also show how Nornickel, as it’s known, will gain from auto-industry changes even if optimism on electric cars is overdone.

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Glencore Sees Nickel in Best Shape in Decade Before EVs Take Off – by Mark Burton (Bloomberg News – November 21, 2017)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

Glencore Plc is seeing the best market conditions for nickel in at least a decade, and electric cars are barely playing a part yet.

The miner and trading giant expects nickel’s 2017 deficit at 170,000 metric tons — one of the biggest in years and more than most market estimates — driven by a 9 percent demand increase from the steel industry, the top user. The market is tightening amid falling stockpiles and rising premiums for physical deliveries, said Owen Gibbs, a senior nickel trader at Glencore.

Prices recently hit a two-year high amid forecasts from banks including Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Bank of America Corp. that an electric-vehicle boom will boost demand for battery metals in the next decade.
Glencore also expects a strong lift in nickel consumption from electric cars, but not materially until 2020. Once that happens, miners will struggle to keep up with faster usage, Gibbs said.

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RPT-COLUMN-Nickel loses its electric car fizz, realises it’s still a steel play – by Clyde Russell (Reuters U.S. – November 20, 2017)

https://www.reuters.com/

LAUNCESTON, Australia, Nov 20 (Reuters) – The nickel market is learning that there is a difference in believing you are the next big thing in battery metals and the reality that you are actually still beholden to the Chinese steel sector.

Nickel was one of the darlings at last month’s annual London Metal Exchange Week, with everybody from producers, to traders and consumers talking up its prospects on the back of the expected surge in electric vehicles.

The euphoria helped drive benchmark LME nickel to a more than two-year closing high of $12,920 a tonne on Nov. 6, but since then the price has stumbled.

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Russia miner Nornickel sees capex rising by 2019-2020 – by Eric Onstad and Polina Devitt (Reuters U.S. – November 20, 2017)

https://www.reuters.com/

LONDON/MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia’s Norilsk Nickel plans to increase capital expenditure to an average of $2.3 billion to $2.5 billion a year in 2019 and 2020 from about $2 billion in 2018 due to an environmental project and infrastructure modernization, it said on Monday.

Nornickel, part-owned by Russian businessman Vladimir Potanin and aluminum giant Rusal, is the world’s top palladium producer and second-largest nickel producer.

“In the next three years, we are budgeting for an increase in capital investments that will allow us not only to maintain metal production volumes, but also put a solid foundation under new perspective projects,” Potanin, also Nornickel’s president, told an Investor Day in London.

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BHP to exit shale within two years, sell nickel assets – by Cecilia Jamasmie (Mining.com – November 17, 2017)

http://www.mining.com/

World’s largest miner BHP (ASX, NYSE:BHP) (LON:BLT) expects to fully divest its US oil and gas business, which it acquired in a $20 billion deals spree in 2011, and is also seeking a buyer for its nickel business in Australia.

The announcements, made by chief executive Andrew Mackenzie during a conference call with investors and media on Thursday, come on the heels of global fund manager Aberdeen Standard Investments decision to fully support activist investor Elliott Management’s push for widespread structural changes at BHP.

Aberdeen is the third-biggest shareholder in BHP, with a 4.9% holding, just behind Elliott, which has a 5.04% stake in the group. The Anglo-Australian mining giant has been under pressure from Elliott Management to rethink its investment in oil and boost shareholder returns.

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Nickel Supply Rush Seen Cooling Rally Before Batteries Boost (Bloomberg News – November 13, 2017)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

Forget electric vehicles for now. Nickel must first contend with a new wave of supply from Indonesia and the Philippines, as well as a Chinese stainless steel market that’s at risk of slowing after a two-year boom.

The metal climbed to the highest level this month since June 2015, lifted by predictions of a jump in demand from electric vehicles. But prices have since retreated as the boost from new energy autos lies several years in the future and investors reset their focus on more immediate concerns.

Batteries will represent only 3 percent of demand this year, compared with the two-thirds used in stainless steel, according to the International Nickel Study Group.

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Layoff at Coleman extended for weeks – by Jim Moodie (Sudbury Star – November 15, 2017)

http://www.thesudburystar.com/

It could be a month now before nearly 500 workers at Coleman Mine in Levack can return to work. Last week Vale temporarily suspended operations at the mine to undertake repairs to a ventilation compartment in the shaft.

“Upon further analysis of the work by our maintenance and engineering teams, it is now expected that the repair work will continue into December,” Vale said in an updated statement Tuesday.

That means the mine is now “on short-term shutdown, and our employees at Coleman will be temporarily laid off for the period of the repair,” according to Vale. While the company did not indicate exactly how long that repair work might take, Steelworkers Local 6500 president Rick Bertrand said his impression is it could be a month.

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Finnish nickel producer, Trafigura tap electric vehicle boom (Reuters – November 10, 2017)

https://www.reuters.com/

HELSINKI (Reuters) – Finland’s Terrafame nickel mine is planning to start producing material for electric vehicle batteries by 2020, the company said on Friday, after securing $200 million more in funding from commodities trader Trafigura Group.

Trafigura, which will also increase its nickel and cobalt sulphides offtake agreement with Terraframe, is providing the funds with Galena Asset Management and Nordic fund Sampo Plc.

“The new funding package … is a significant factor enabling Terrafame to move from established industrial operations to investing in new business opportunities associated with the electric vehicle battery segment,” Trafigura said in a statement on Friday.

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North American Nickel forecasts Greenland project launch by 2024 (Reuters U.S. – November 1, 2017)

https://www.reuters.com/

BEIJING, Nov 1 (Reuters) – North American Nickel should start producing at its flagship Maniitsoq project in Greenland by 2023 or 2024, when demand for nickel from electric vehicle (EV) batteries should be in full swing, the company’s chief executive officer (CEO) said on Tuesday.

The Toronto-based exploration company, which acquired the Maniitsoq licences five years ago, has invested over $50 million in exploration so far, CEO Keith Morrison told Reuters in an interview in Beijing, where he was attending the annual Greenland Day at the Danish embassy.

It will be at least another five years before it has finished exploration, completed feasibility studies and construction, and started selling its metals output.

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Spare a Nickel for Vale? – by David Fickling (Bloomberg News – November 8, 2017)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

Here’s a sign that 2017’s nickel boom is in full swing: Vale SA is looking to sell a slice of its New Caledonian unit, and seems to be attracting bidders.

The interest in Vale New Caledonia, or VNC, is surprising because the division — on a French-ruled island in the Pacific that’s due to hold a vote on independence next year — is one of the highest-cost mines in an industry that’s spent years losing money.

The existence of willing buyers is as strong a signal as you could want that the prospect of fresh demand from electric vehicle batteries is leading many to bet on a recovery from nickel’s three-year slump.

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COLUMN-London Metal Exchange Week galvanised by electric dreams – by Andy Home (Reuters U.S. – November 3, 2017)

https://www.reuters.com/

LONDON, Nov 3 (Reuters) – The future is bright. The future is electric. The green technology revolution lit up this year’s London Metals Exchange (LME) Week. “Electric vehicles are a great long-term story” for industrial metals, according to Colin Hamilton, head of commodities research at BMO Capital Markets.

And this is a sector that has been looking for exactly that since the abrupt demise of the “super-cycle” story that accompanied the last big bull rally. Copper has traditionally been the talk of the LME Week cocktail parties and dinners because this is the time Chilean producer Codelco announces its premiums for the coming year.

But this year copper was rudely shoved out of the London limelight by new hot metals such as lithium, cobalt and nickel. Particularly nickel, another core metallic component of the lithium-ion batteries that are going to power all those electric vehicles (EVs).

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Electric cars could give nickel a jolt (Bloomberg News/Sudbury Star – November 5, 2017)

http://www.thesudburystar.com/

Glencore and Trafigura Group Pte are often at loggerheads, but one thing they agree on: The nickel market will be transformed by the rise of electric cars.

Nickel sulphate, a key ingredient in lithium-ion batteries, will see demand increase 50 per cent to three million metric tonnes by 2030, Saad Rahim, chief economist at Trafigura, said in an interview. While other battery metals like cobalt and lithium have more than doubled since the start of last year, nickel prices have been subdued because of large inventories.

“When you look structurally, we should start to get bullish now,” Rahim said. “Are you going to be able to meet that demand when the time comes, given underinvestment in the supply side?”

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New chief of Brazil’s Vale aims to halve debt – by Neil Hume (Financial Times – November 5, 2017)

https://www.ft.com/

Fabio Schvartsman says he wants miner to become ‘results orientated’

The new head of Brazil’s biggest private company Vale has said the miner must halve net debt to less than $10bn if it wants to become a “results-orientated” company.

In an interview with the Financial Times, Fabio Schvartsman said reducing debt was his number one priority and that there was a better chance of restarting the Samarco iron ore mine — the site of Brazil’s biggest environmental catastrophe and which it owns 50:50 with BHP Billiton — if Vale were able to take control.

“If we are at the $10bn level, it doesn’t matter what happens with commodity prices,” said Mr Schvartsman. “Vale will be in a very sound position to do everything that is necessary.” The company’s current market capitalisation is $53bn.

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BHP to step up copper exploration, expansions to meet electric vehicles sector’s rising demand – by Cecilia Jamasmie (Mining.com – November 1, 2017)

http://www.mining.com/

World’s biggest miner getting ready to provide enough copper for the booming electric cars industry.

World number one mining company BHP (ASX, NYSE: BHP) (LON:BLT) plans to step up copper exploration and expansions as it wants to be ready to meet electric vehicles sector’s rising demand for copper.

“We want more copper resources in our portfolio. And we believe the most valuable pathway to achieving this is through exploration, the drill bit,” Danny Malchuk, president of operations at BHP’s Minerals Americas, said at Bloomberg’s LME Week forum on Wednesday.

Unlike most miners, which slashed exploration budgets during the downturn that ended last year, BHP has kept its copper exploration budget steady at an average of $60 million annually over the last four-to-five years out of its overall budget for exploration of around $1 billion, Reuters reports.

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