A metal nobody needs anymore : Nickel

Posted by: FANTOMAS on September 01, 2008 10:56AM

This is just a headline of one of the financial newspapers that I read and should probably help to get away from our "Al yes / Al no" discussion.

This headline lead me to think about NOT in particular and about all nickel miners in general:

why is everybody so upbeat and enthusiastic about nickel finds ?

And why the lack of intrest in chrome which is difficult to be replaced ?

The article states that a lot of nickel consumers are looking for cheaper and better substitutions for that once pricey metal (1998: $ 3860 / t ; 2007 : $ 54100 / t ; today around $ 19500 / t), namely ferronickel for steel production.

Nickel can cause allergic problems by contact and that´s why steel-producers are looking for "safer" replacement metals even if they are more expensive.

Another "problem" with nickel is the very high energy consumtion in the separation process to get the metal, mainly oil driven.

That´s why, for example, XStrata suspended nickel production at Falcondo up to the end of the year (the same for BHP with one of their Australian mines) , because of high oil prices and low nickel prices. They are looking to replace oil powered smelters with cheaper coal powered systems.

So, a lot of problems and possibly no "recovery" of nickel prices to all-time-highs in the short to medium term.

But what about CHROME ?

I think NOT has a big advantage with the MULTI-METAL deposits so far and the Blackbirds could soon change this play to a whole new direction.

FANTOMAS

P.S.: I found some interesting information about the chrome story and try to post this later (have to translate that first).