Vale to shut Manitoba nickel smelting, refining in 2018

By Rod Nickel
WINNIPEG, Manitoba, Nov 19 (Reuters) - Brazilian miner Vale
SA VALE5.SA will close its nickel smelting and refining
operations in the western Canadian province of Manitoba in 2018,
but will continue mining and milling despite the plunge in the
price of nickel, a company official said on Thursday.
Vale, the world's biggest nickel producer, will cease
smelting and refining in Thompson, Manitoba, once work is
complete to allow it to produce and ship nickel concentrate from
its mill, said Mark Scott, Vale's director of mining and milling
in Thompson.
Smelting and refining operations were originally scheduled
for closure this year, until the company struck an agreement
with workers and Canada's environment department to keep them
running until as late as 2019.
London nickel futures CMNI3 fell on Thursday to their
lowest level in seven years, less than $9,000 per tonne. Nickel
has been hurt by a supply glut and softer demand from China, the
largest consumer of the versatile metal, which is used in
products ranging from coins to rechargeable batteries. MET/L
Scott, speaking on the sidelines of a Winnipeg mining
conference, declined to say if Thompson nickel operations were
losing money in light of weak prices. Vale, also an iron ore
producer, last month posted a third-quarter net loss of $2.1
billion. urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL1N12M0BA
The company will finish its feasibility study for Footwall
Deep, an extension of the current Thompson ore body, in the 2016
first quarter, and then will put the project on "pause" to await
better prices, Scott said.
Vale plans to ship nickel from its mine at Voisey's Bay,
Newfoundland and Labrador, to a new processing facility at Long
Harbour in the same province, instead of to Thompson and to
Sudbury, Ontario.
The company is also expanding its Thompson tailings area,
which contains mining waste such as metal filings, water and
occasionally chemicals, even as Vale and BHP Billiton Plc
BLT.L face criticism over a burst dam at their Brazil iron ore
mine.
Scott said the Thompson tailings project will add measures
to better control water flow and include an independent review
of engineering work.
Meanwhile, Vale has placed its Kronau potash-mining project
in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan on hold, spokesman Cory
McPhee said on Thursday. The sector has also been dogged by
falling prices.