New Caledonia is a major source for nickel and contains roughly 10% of the world's known nickel supply. The islands contain about 7,100,000 tonnes of nickel. With the annual production of about 107,000 tonnes in 2009, New Caledonia was the world's fifth largest producer after Russia (266,000), Indonesia (189,000), Canada (181,000) and Australia (167,000). In recent years, the economy has suffered because of depressed international demand for nickel due to the 2007-2008 global financial crisis. Only a negligible amount of the land is suitable for cultivation, and food accounts for about 20% of imports. In addition to nickel, the substantial financial support from France and tourism are keys to the health of the economy. In the 2000s, large additions were made to nickel mining capacity. The Goro Nickel Plant is expected to be one of the largest nickel producing plants on Earth. This plant produces an estimated 20% of the global nickel supply. However, the need to respond to environmental concerns over the country's globally recognized ecological heritage, may increasingly need to be factored into capitalization of mining operations.
Vale Canada Limited is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Brazilian mining company Vale. Vale's nickel mining and metals division is headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It produces nickel, copper, cobalt, platinum, rhodium, ruthenium, iridium, gold, and silver. Prior to being purchased by CVRD in 2006, Inco was the world's second largest producer of nickel, and the third largest mining company outside South Africa and Russia of platinum group metals. It was also a charter member of the 30-stock Dow Jones Industrial Average formed on October 1, 1928.
Falconbridge Limited was a Toronto, Ontario-based natural resources company with operations in 18 countries, involved in the exploration, mining, processing, and marketing of metal and mineral products, including nickel, copper, cobalt, and platinum. It was listed on the TSX and NYSE (FAL), and had revenue of US$6.9 billion in 2005. In August 2006, it was absorbed by Swiss-based mining company Xstrata, which had formerly been a major shareholder.
Boliden AB is a Swedish multinational metals, mining, and smelting company headquartered in Stockholm. The company produces zinc, copper, lead, nickel, silver, and gold, with operations in Sweden, Finland, Norway, and Ireland.
Heap leaching is an industrial mining process used to extract precious metals, copper, uranium, and other compounds from ore using a series of chemical reactions that absorb specific minerals and re-separate them after their division from other earth materials. Similar to in situ mining, heap leach mining differs in that it places ore on a liner, then adds the chemicals via drip systems to the ore, whereas in situ mining lacks these liners and pulls pregnant solution up to obtain the minerals. Heap leaching is widely used in modern large-scale mining operations as it produces the desired concentrates at a lower cost compared to conventional processing methods such as flotation, agitation, and vat leaching.
Norilsk Nickel, or Nornickel, is a Russian nickel and palladium mining and smelting company. Its largest operations are located in the Norilsk–Talnakh area near the Yenisei River in the north of Siberia. It also has holdings in Nikel, Zapolyarny, and Monchegorsk on the Kola Peninsula, in Harjavalta in western Finland, and in South Africa.
Heath Steele Mines, situated 60 km (37 mi) northwest of Newcastle, New Brunswick, Canada, at the headwaters of the Tomogonops and Little Rivers, was a large and productive copper, lead, and zinc mine which operated from 1956 to 1999. The mine was an economic cornerstone of Miramichi communities throughout this period.
Lateritic nickel ore deposits are surficial, weathered rinds formed on ultramafic rocks. They account for 73% of the continental world nickel resources and will be in the future the dominant source for the mining of nickel.
Despite being a mineral rich country, Cameroon has only recently begun to investigate mining on an industrial scale. Strong metal and industrial mineral prices since 2003 have encouraged companies to develop mines here. The terrain mainly consists of granite-rich ground with areas of ultramafic rocks that are sources of cobalt and nickel. There are also deposits of bauxite, gold, iron ore, nepheline syenite, and rutile. Alluvial gold is mainly mined by artisanal miners.
Tajikistan has rich deposits of gold, silver, and antimony. The largest silver deposits are in Sughd Province, where Tajikistan's largest gold mining operation also is located. Russia's Norilsk nickel company has explored a large new silver deposit at Bolshoy Kanimansur. More than 400 mineral deposits of some 70 different minerals have been discovered in Tajikistan, including strontium, tungsten, molybdenum, bismuth, salt, lead, zinc, fluorspar, and mercury. These minerals have been found suitable for mining. Uranium, an important mineral in the Soviet era, remains in some quantity but is no longer extracted. The Tajikistan Aluminium Company (TALCO), an aluminium smelter, is the country's only large-scale production enterprise in the mining sector. Tajikistan hosts the annual Mining World Tajikistan, an international exhibition on mining in Dushanbe.
A nickel mine is a mine that produces nickel. Some mines produce nickel primarily, while some mines produce nickel as a side-product of some other metal that has a higher concentration in the ore.
Nickel mining in Western Australia has been an industry that has had many fluctuations of fortune in its history. Large fluctuations in the world nickel price have seen mines close and reopen on several occasions.
The Goro mine is a large nickel mine in the south of New Caledonia, near the township of Yaté, Prony Bay, in the South Province. It was owned by the Brazilian company Vale, who, after failing to sell it to Melbourne-based New Century Mining in June 2020 sold it to Prony Resources New Caledonia consortium in April 2021. The large mine and plant was opened at Goro in 2010 although it has had frequent problems and stoppages.
The Cerro Matoso mine in northwest of Colombia is one of the largest open-pit ferronickel mines in the world. and the largest mine of South America, containing the largest nickel reserve in Colombia. It is operated by Cerro Matoso S.A., a company that was owned by Anglo-Australian multinational BHP between 1980 and 2015, and since then is owned by South32. There have been allegations that the mine's operations have caused heavy metal pollution affecting especially local indigenous Zenu and Afro-Descendant residents. These allegations have been rejected by Cerro Matoso on the basis of the available scientific and medical evidence. In March 2018 a Review Chamber of the Constitutional Court of Colombia ordered Cerro Matoso to pay damages to local communities. This decision was reversed partially in September 2018 by the Plenary Chamber of the Constitutional Court on the basis that it did not comply with constitutional precedent for payment of damages and noting that there was no evidence of a direct correlation between the mining operations and the alleged damages.
The Fenix nickel project also known as El Estor mine is an integrated mountain-top nickel mine and processing facility near El Estor in the Izabal Department of eastern Guatemala. The project consists of a cluster of several deposits with reserves amounting to 36.1 million tonnes of ore grading 1.86% nickel. The project is owned by Solway Group through Guatemalan subsidiaries CGN and Pronico.
The Solway Investment Group Limited, is a private international mining and metals group located in Switzerland. The Group conducts operations in North Macedonia, Ukraine, Indonesia and Guatemala.
Nickel mining in Indonesia began with small-scale exploratory mining operations during the Dutch East Indies era and began to expand in the 1960s. Most of Indonesia's proven nickel reserves are located in the islands of Sulawesi and Halmahera, and the country has the largest annual production and reserves of nickel in the world.
Bauxite has been mined in Indonesia since the Dutch colonial era.
The 2020 protests in New Caledonia began on 28 October 2020 over a plan to sell a Vale-owned nickel and cobalt mine to a consortium led by Trafigura. The nickel mine and plant is known as the Goro mine. Independence leaders and pro-independence protesters wanted for the nickel plant to be owned by citizens of New Caledonia rather than foreign investors, though various arrangements have been proposed.
