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Nickel

Nickel supply shock, ad-hoc – by Tim Treadgold (Mining Journal – December 14, 2016)

http://www.mining-journal.com/

From less than US$4 a pound just before Christmas last year the nickel price has risen by more than 30% to around US$5.13/lb with a recent peak of US$5.24/lb earlier this month.

But, if you look at a graph of the nickel price over the past 60 days it is obvious that traders are uncertain whether to bid the metal higher, or push it lower, with US$5/lb the price around which they’re circling while politicians in the Philippines (and Indonesia) decide whether to encourage or discourage nickel exports to China.

As might be expected when it comes to political factors investment banks are uncertain which way nickel will move when the Philippines Government releases the delayed final audit of its mining industry, perhaps as soon as tomorrow (December 15).

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Glencore digging deep to stay in Sudbury: VP – by Darren MacDonald (Sudbury Northern Life – December 13, 2016)

https://www.sudbury.com/

With Nickel Rim expected to close in 2021, company is working on developing deeper mines

Glencore is working hard to develop new deposits in Sudbury ahead of 2021, when current deposits will largely be exhausted, city councillors were told Tuesday. That was the word from Peter Xavier, vice-president of the company’s Sudbury Integrated Nickel Operations, who updated the city on the state of their work in the city.

Glencore is the current owner of the mines, which date back to the late 1920s when it was owned by Falconbridge Ltd. Their largest deposit is the Nickel Rim South Mine, a deposit discovered in 2001 and brought into production in 2010.

“It’s the financial base of our operation,” Xavier said, adding they have done work in attempts to extend its life. “Unfortunately, those efforts haven’t proved to be successful.”

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Glencore sees nickel shortage as electric vehicle demand burgeons – by Martin Creamer (MiningWeekly.com – December 2, 2016)

http://www.miningweekly.com/

JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Diversified mining and marketing company Glencore sees a shortage in nickel arising as a result of burgeoning demand from electric vehicle (EV) production.

Batteries used in EVs are consuming about 100 000 t of nickel demand and if 10% of the world’s vehicle fleet transitions to electric power, 400 000 t of nickel would be required on current yearly production of 1.95-million tonnes.

“We see a shortage in nickel,” Glencore CEO Ivan Glasenberg said in response to BNP Paribas analyst Sylvain Brunet during a conference call in which Creamer Media’s Mining Weekly Online took part.

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Glencore still digging Sudbury – by Ella Myers (Northern Ontario Business – November 25, 2016)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Ultra deep progress shows confidence in Sudbury Integrated Nickel Operations, says VP

Glencore plans to dig deeper into Sudbury in the upcoming year. Peter Xavier, vice-president of their Sudbury Integrated Nickel Operations, said they anticipate board approval shortly for two ultra deep mine sites in the region, at their flagship Nickel Rim and their proposed Onaping Depth, now under development.

“These projects are on the cusp of approval… they’re not guaranteed,” said Xavier, who presented an update on the miner’s Sudbury operations at a Greater Sudbury Chamber of Commerce luncheon, Nov. 24. At Nickel Rim site, they’re looking at extending their existing operations by 1,000 metres to a depth of 2,700 metres to access a sizable nearby deposit.

At their newer Onaping Depth site, they’re working on a deposit that could not be safely accessed until recent innovations in ultra deep mining technology. Xavier said both projects will move onto full-fledged development in 2017.

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Nickel will recover: Glencore’s Sudbury VP – by Mary Katherine Keown (Sudbury Star – November 25, 2016)

http://www.thesudburystar.com/

Nickel may be down, but it is not out and there are still plenty of opportunities to be found.

Peter Xavier, vice president of Sudbury Integrated Nickel Operations, a Glencore Company, delivered the keynote address at Thursday’s Chamber of Commerce luncheon. He said Sudbury continues to be the “meat and potatoes” of its nickel operations.
“(The company), more than ever, is driven out of Sudbury,” Xavier said.

Nickel prices dive and peak, but Xavier said that is not just due to demand. There are also structural changes within the market to consider. In recent weeks, nickel has surged to just more than $5 a pound US.

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Vale slashes Sudbury nickel refinery emissions – by Norm Tollinsky (Sudbury Mining Solutions Journal – November 14, 2016)

http://www.sudburyminingsolutions.com/

$75 million project reduces metal particulate emissions by 90 per cent

Vale has announced the completion of a $75 million Nickel Refinery Emissions Reduction Project in Sudbury.

The largest investment and facility upgrade at the Copper Cliff nickel refinery since it was constructed in 1973 brings the company into compliance with new provincial and federal government standards for the emission of nickel and total suspended particulates.

The new provincial standard took effect July 1, 2016 and is based on an annual averaging period as opposed to the 24-hour averaging period of the previous standard.

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Kola Peninsula nickel giant promises to cut sulfur dioxide emissions in half – by Charles Digges (Bellona.org – November 21, 2016)

http://bellona.org/

MURMANSK –The notoriously polluting Kola Mining and Metallurgy Combine (KMMC) has said it plans to reduce annual emissions of sulfur dioxide by nearly half within two years, it’s parent company told Bellona.

A source of tension between Norway and Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union, the KMMC – a daughter company of the giant Norilsk Nickel based in Northern Siberia – yearly emits some 80,000 tons of the heavy metal, much of which finds its way into northern Norway.

Norilsk Nickel itself announced last week that it would slash emissions in its hometown – the most polluted city in Russia – by as much as 75 percent by 2020. Yury Yushin, who heads the Norilsk Nickel’s department of cooperative programs told Bellona that the company intends to reduce its emissions to 44,000 tons a year by 2019. He didn’t, however, discuss any specifics behind the dramatic reduction.

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Wallbridge Mining ventures into the unexplored: Drilling commences on Sudbury joint venture (Northern Ontario Business – November 21, 2016)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

The Wallbridge Mining Company is breaking unusually new ground in the Sudbury Basin. The Sudbury-based junior mining company started another round of drilling on their Parkin Properties, on the northeast edge of the basin, in October.

The site is practically virgin territory compared to nearby areas, according to Joshua Bailey, vice-president of exploration at the Wallbridge Mining Company.

“It hasn’t had as much exploration as elsewhere,” said Bailey, adding that “if this project has a fraction of what is elsewhere in the basin, it would be a success.” This isn’t the first drilling in the area for Wallbridge.

They completed promising drilling between 2008 and 2012 as part of a joint venture with Impala Platinum Holdings Limited (Implats), after which they re-purchased Implat’s nearly 50 per cent interest in the properties.

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Vale’s community report looks to another 60 years of mining – by Kacper Antoszewski (Thompson Citizen – November 8, 2016)

http://www.thompsoncitizen.net/

Corporate affairs and organizational development manager Ryan Land was the guest speaker at a special meeting of the Thompson Chamber of Commerce Nov. 9, organized due to his cancellation the previous week. Land updated the chamber on Vale’s recently released annual community report including the results of this year’s Mining Association of Canada (MAC) audit and some of the past year’s accomplishments.

The community report presentation largely revolved around the results of Manitoba Operation’s Sustainable Mining Initiative audit, conducted by the MAC, which assesses member firms based on performance in tailings management, aboriginal and community outreach, energy use and emissions, safety and health, and crisis management.

The report places Manitoba Operations as AAA operators in the areas of aboriginal awareness, safety and health, and crisis management. More average is tailings management, floating in a grey area between A and AA ratings, along with A and B ratings in the areas of energy and emissions.

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[Vale takeover of Inco] The great Canadian mining non-disaster – by Ian McGugan (Globe and Mail – November 4, 2016)

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Sudbury’s experience of high wages and continued prosperity should quell fears about foreign acquisitions of Canadian mining assets

SUDBURY, ONT. – A couple of dozen men in hard hats and orange coveralls are gathered in a brightly lit, mud-splattered room, chatting about the type of topics we all chat about at work – the Leafs’ prospects, a daughter’s coming wedding, a deer someone saw on the drive in.

What makes these men different from pampered folks like you and me is that they are getting ready to drop more than half a mile into the earth. Once underground at Vale SA’s Totten Mine in Sudbury, Ont., they will operate giant scoops and haulers in dim, sweltering tunnels that have the capacity to kill the unwary or the unlucky.

“We’re lucky here because the depth and the ground conditions are pretty favourable for less seismic activity,” mine manager Gilbert Lamarche says nonchalantly as we prepare for the “cage,” or elevator, that will take us down to working depth. “But in other mines, the ground conditions are a much bigger factor.”

It’s a thought that tends to linger in the mind as men crowd into the narrow metal cage, the door rattles shut and we descend into the darkness at 1,700 feet a minute. Whatever else a mine may be, it’s fundamentally an operation rooted deep in a specific piece of the earth – which may be why the mines around Sudbury have become a powerful symbol for the territorial battle between local allegiances and global businesses.

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PolyMet launches next critical phase of controversial mine plan for NE Minnesota – by Josephine Marcotty (Minneapolis Star Tribune – November 3, 2016)

http://www.startribune.com/

A monthslong review and more fierce debate over copper-nickel mining expected.

PolyMet Mining Corp. has formally applied for a permit to mine copper and nickel in northeast Minnesota, the first of its kind in state history and a key turning point in the long fight to establish a new but environmentally risky kind of mining in the region.

The 15,000-page application launches another extensive state review and is likely to set off a fierce new round of debate — this time over design of the mine, the loss of thousands of acres of wetlands, and how PolyMet would treat contaminated water decades after the operation closes.

The application also addresses a critical question that has hung over the project for years: How much money PolyMet will offer as financial insurance against future pollution and reclamation costs. It’s proposing $12 million for the first year of construction, $44 million for the second, and $197 million for the third.

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Feds explore nickel coin’s use, but no plans to send it the way of the penny – by Andy Blatchford (Victoria Times Colonist – October 26, 2016)

http://www.timescolonist.com/

OTTAWA – An internal federal analysis shows the government has studied the pros and cons of the nickel — but Ottawa insists it has no plans to force the five-cent coin into retirement, as it did the penny.

When the Royal Canadian Mint yanked the penny from circulation in 2013, the nickel became the country’s smallest circulating denomination of pocket change. Since then, many people have expected it would only be a matter of time before Ottawa also eliminated the nickel.

Earlier this year, a Finance Department memo to senior officials examined the nickel’s purchasing power, usage and production costs. Much of the April document, obtained by The Canadian Press under the Access to Information Act, was blacked out, including the “assessment” portion that likely discussed the coin’s future.

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10 years after takeover, Vale predicts ‘bright future’ for Sudbury mines (CBC News Sudbury – October 26, 2016)

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

Glencore declines to comment on 10th anniversary since Falconbridge purchase

Despite low nickel prices and rising costs, Vale is forecasting a bright future for its Sudbury mines. This week marks 10 years since the Brazilian iron ore company took over Sudbury-based Inco.

Stuart Harshaw is now Vale’s vice-president of Ontario Operations, but he started his career with the old Inco.He says his company has been good for Sudbury over the last decade and is quick to list off $4 billion in investments in local infrastructure, that he says would have been more difficult for a smaller company.

Most of the last decade has seen gloomy times for the mining sector, with slumping metal prices and rising costs with miners going deeper and deeper into the earth.But Harshaw predicts a rosy future for Vale operations in Sudbury, while acknowledging that changes lie ahead.

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Sudbury reflects on 10 years since foreign takeovers of Inco and Falconbridge (CBC News Sudbury – October 23, 2016)

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

Many in Sudbury feel a merger between the two local mining companies would have been best

It has been 10 years since the foreign takeovers of Sudbury’s two homegrown mining companies. And the debate continues over whether or not this has tarnished the Nickel Capital over the last decade.

Vale — then known as CVRD — officially took over Inco on Oct. 24, 2006, three months after Falconbridge was bought by Swiss-based Xstrata.John Fera was president of Steelworkers 6500 when Inco became Vale in 2006.

He says the Brazilian company promised to make things better — but that hasn’t happened.
“It doesn’t seem to be the family atmosphere it used to be. I mean we had our fights with Inco and Falconbridge, but when the fight was over, the fight was over,” he says. “I don’t see our workplaces being better. I don’t see our workplaces being safe than before these people came.”

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BHP Sees Imminent Turning Point in Nickel With Deficit Looming – by Rebecca Keenan (Bloomberg News – October 20, 2016)

http://www.bloomberg.com/

BHP Billiton Ltd., the world’s largest mining company, sees the nickel market swinging into deficit because of supply threats in the Philippines and growing demand from electric vehicles and stainless steel.

“There are signs that this year could be finally the turning point for nickel with many expecting the market to be in deficit and so starting the much needed re-balancing process,” Eduard Haegel, asset president of BHP’s Nickel West unit, said at a conference in Perth Thursday. “The welcome return to balance over the next few years should see further recovery in nickel prices.”

Nickel has rebounded more than a third from the intraday low in February this year, which was the cheapest in more than a decade. Prices have been buoyed as the market awaits the final results from a nationwide audit in the Philippines, the world’s largest producer, which was ordered by President Rodrigo Duterte to ensure suppliers aren’t flouting environmental rules.

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