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Nickel

Why there’s no silver bullet for the nickel pickle facing the Albanese government – by Rhiannon Shine (Australian Broadcasting Corporation – February 22, 2024)

https://www.abc.net.au/

When miners first struck nickel in Western Australia’s dusty outback in the late 1960s, it kickstarted a rollercoaster ride that brought the likes of Harold Holt and Andrew Forrest to town. So exciting was the revelation of nickel in Kambalda, 60 kilometres south of Kalgoorlie, the prime minister came to town to join the party.

“It is an important national asset,” Mr Holt declared from the Goldfields mine site in 1967.Today it is seen as not only important but critical – due to its use in the batteries needed for the global energy transition.Two years ago, the price of nickel reached a dizzying height of around $76,000 (US$50,000) per tonne.

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Australia gives nickel a quick fix, but surgery of global industry needed – by Clyde Russell (Reuters – February 19, 2024)

https://www.reuters.com/

LAUNCESTON, Australia, Feb 19 (Reuters) – Australia is throwing a lifeline to its under pressure nickel mining sector, but the solution on offer is more of a band aid than the needed major surgery, the carving of the global nickel industry into green and dirty.

Resources Minister Madeleine King placed nickel on the critical minerals list, a move that allows the industry to access some of the A$4 billion ($2.7 billion) of federal government funding aimed at promoting minerals vital to energy transition.

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‘Time for courageous, big-thinking policy’, says nickel miner – by Brad Thompson (Australian Financial Review – February 17, 2024)

https://www.afr.com/

Andrew Forrest-owned nickel miner Wyloo says “courageous, big-thinking policy” is needed to save the industry in Australia. Wyloo is pushing hard for big tax breaks and other action beyond belated relief measures announced by the Albanese and WA governments on Friday.

Perth-headquartered Wyloo and other big players in nickel and lithium are maintaining calls for a production tax credit of at least 10 per cent to reduce costs and spur investment in downstream processing of battery and strategically important minerals.

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Plans to build mineral processing plants in Timmins by 2027 ‘a bit of a stretch,’ says expert – by Aya Dufour (CBC News Sudbury – February 9, 2024)

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

Canada Nickel announced plans Thursday to build ‘biggest nickel processing facility in America’

Laurentian University professor Jean-Charles Cachon isn’t convinced Canada Nickel will succeed in its plans to build two new processing facilities and begin production by 2027.

“The company has yet to produce any profits,” he said. “At this point in time it is a small company that has expenses related to exploration.” Canada Nickel is currently advancing the Crawford nickel project, a proposed open-pit nickel-cobalt mine located some 43 kilometres north of Timmins, Ont.

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Canada Nickel Co. introduces plans for new processing facilities, but funding remains uncertain – by Matthew McClearn (Globe and Mail – February 9, 2024)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Canada Nickel Company Inc. announced plans Thursday to build two large processing facilities near Timmins, Ont., whose output would be directed partly to North America’s rapidly growing market for electric vehicles.

The company said its wholly owned subsidiary, NetZero Metals Inc., intends to build a nickel-processing facility it described as North America’s largest, as well as a stainless-steel and alloy plant it said would be Canada’s biggest.

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BHP ramps up cost-cutting as axe hangs over thousands of nickel jobs – by Brad Thompson (Australian Financial Review – February 11, 2024)

https://www.afr.com/

BHP has told suppliers and workers at its West Australian nickel operations that it needs to cut costs for the business to have any chance of surviving the nickel rout that has claimed mines run by IGO and Andrew Forrest’s Wyloo.

Chief executive Mike Henry and the BHP board face tough calls on Nickel West amid estimates the business is losing up to $50 million a month at current nickel prices. Nickel miners, including Nickel West boss Jessica Farrell, met WA Premier Roger Cook on Friday as part of work by his government to refresh its critical minerals strategy in light of the downturn in nickel, lithium and other green metals.

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Canada Nickel looking to build two processing facilities in Timmins – by Maija Hoggett (Northern Ontario Business – February 8, 2024)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Toronto mine developer looks to break ground on zero-emission project in mid-2025

A Toronto nickel company is seeking to position Timmins as a global source of clean critical minerals. Timmins MPP George Pirie, the provincial minister of mines, was in town Feb. 8 for Canada Nickel’s announcement that it’s developing two processing facilities — one for nickel and another for stainless-steel and alloy production.

The facilities would be the downstream processing element for its proposed Crawford open-pit nickel mine.When complete, Canada Nickel CEO Mark Selby said the nickel processing facility will be the largest in North America, while the stainless-steel and alloy production will be the largest in Canada.

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Australia to propose green mining standards amid slump in EV metals – by Ryohtaroh Satch (Nikkei Asia – February 7, 2024)

https://asia.nikkei.com/

Resources minister cites need to protect industry as Asian competition grows

TOKYO — Australia will propose setting up international standards for ethical and environmentally friendly mining in an attempt to command higher prices for its minerals amid a sluggish market and competition from countries like Indonesia.

“It’s a long-term project, but there’s no doubt there’s something I’ll be raising,” Minister for Resources Madeleine King told Nikkei Asia while visiting Tokyo last week. King said she will propose the idea at the PDAC 2024 Convention, a mineral industry trade event, in Canada in March.

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China’s refined nickel trade signals new production trends – by Andy Home (Reuters – February 6, 2024)

https://www.reuters.com/

LONDON, Feb 6 (Reuters) – China’s net imports of refined nickel fell to a near-decade low in 2023, capturing the tectonic shifts playing out in the global production chain. China’s call on Class I high-purity nickel has been waning for many months as the country ramps up imports of other forms of the metal from Indonesia.

Much of that Indonesian material has traditionally been nickel pig iron (NPI) heading for China’s stainless steel sector. More recently, trade flows have included rising amounts of matte and mixed hydroxide precipitate (MHP) destined for conversion into electric vehicle batteries.

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Forrests forced to prop up struggling nickel business as prices slide – by Peter Ker and Brad Thompson (Australian Financial Review – February 6, 2024)

https://www.afr.com/

The billionaire Forrest family has tipped another $31 million into its privately held Australian nickel business amid expectations it will burn cash and face an impairment.

Andrew and Nicola Forrest’s private Wyloo vehicle paid more than $700 million to acquire Mincor Resources last year, but has already been forced to announce closure of the mines following a significant slump in the nickel price. Mincor was also affected by product quality issues linked to higher than expected arsenic levels in the nickel ore.

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From Green Hype to Bailouts, the Nickel Industry Has Imploded – by Thomas Biesheuvel (Bloomberg News – February 3, 2024)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

(Bloomberg) — Just 18 months ago, the world’s biggest mining company was in a nickel frenzy. BHP Group, to much fanfare, had struck a deal with Tesla Inc. to supply it with the crucial ingredient for electric vehicles. It was about to go toe-to-toe with Australian billionaire Andrew Forrest for control of one of the globe’s most prospective mines.

For BHP, nickel offered a bright spot. Its management had earmarked the material as a key pillar of growth, a future-facing commodity that would help offset its exit from fossil fuels and let it tap into new demand driven by the world’s race to decarbonize.

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Activists, Hollywood take down top 50 mining company – by Frik Els (Mining.com – January 31, 2024)

https://www.mining.com/

The ranks of the most valuable mining companies in the world were throughly scrambled in 2023 as governments intervened, lithium and nickel prices tumbled, gold hit records and a new listing went ballistic.

At the end of 2023, the MINING.COM TOP 50* ranking of the world’s most valuable miners reached a combined $1.42 trillion, up a healthy, if far from spectacular $48.7 billion over the course of 2023. Mining’s top tier is also worth $330 billion less than in March 2022.

Metal and mineral markets are volatile at the best of times – the nickel, cobalt and lithium price collapse in 2023 was extreme but not entirely unprecedented. Rare earth producers, platinum group metal watchers, iron ore followers, and gold and silver bugs for that matter, have been through worse.

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Opinion: Critical minerals boom goes bust – by Jennifer Hewett (Australian Financial Review – February 1, 2024)

https://www.afr.com/

The collapse of lithium and nickel prices is a rude awakening for Australia’s miners, but also reveals the challenges in the Albanese government’s ambition for greater domestic manufacturing.

The West Australian government’s budget is still flush with mining royalties thanks to iron ore. But although iron ore will continue to sustain the state’s finances, last year’s excited rhetoric about Australia instantly becoming home to a rich new resources boom in critical minerals is now looking distinctly threadbare.

In early 2023, WA politicians were marvelling that lithium royalties had suddenly grown to be worth $1 billion a year, for example, albeit a distant second to iron ore. Then minister for state development and now premier Roger Cook boasted of WA’s ambitions in critical minerals processing, extending from lithium hydroxide to nickel sulphate to battery manufacturing.

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Sudbury researcher predicts late 2024 construction for bio-mining innovation centre – by Ian Ross (Northern Ontario Business – January 31, 2024)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

MIRARCO Mining Innovation CEO confident on capital investment arriving for mine waste tech centre

A Canadian expert in the field of bio-mining hopes to break ground on a Centre for Mine Waste Technologies in Sudbury by the end of this year.

Nadia Mykytczuk, president of MIRARCO Mining Innovation, said she’s following an “aggressive timeline” in seeking to construct a $38-million innovation centre when she spoke before the provincial standing committee on finance and economic affairs in Sudbury, Jan.30, as part of the government’s 2024 pre-budget public hearings.

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Indonesian nickel boom claims another WA mine, and hundreds of jobs – by Peter Milne and Simon Johanson (Sydney Morning Herald – January 31, 2024)

https://www.smh.com.au/

Battery minerals specialist IGO will close its Cosmos nickel mine in Western Australia’s Goldfields region at the cost of about 400 jobs as cheap production from Indonesia wreaks havoc with Australian producers. IGO chief executive Ivan Vella said the ability of Indonesian nickel miners to cost-effectively build new mines and processing plants and bring them to full capacity had caught the market by surprise.

Vella, presenting his first results since joining IGO from Rio Tinto in December, said the recent nickel price plunge meant it would not be prudent to bring the new mine into full production.

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