Province, Vale Inco Reach Deal

[mt_pockets1000]

Province, Vale Inco reach deal
Construction phase extended for Long Harbour hydromet facility
BY PETER WALSH AND ELIZABETH MACDONALD
The Charter

World nickel giant Vale Inco and the province reached a deal late Thursday that will allow construction to start this spring on a $2.2-billion nickel processing plant in Long Harbour.
The province agreed to give the company a 14-month extension to the final construction date.
The company will complete the hydromet nickel-processing facility by February, 2013. In exchange, Vale Inco agreed to tougher guarantees that the work will go ahead as planned.
"Shovels will be in the ground in Long Harbour. Demolition. Earth will be moving. There will be activity as soon as frost is out of the area and the snow is gone," Premier Danny Williams said.

The Charter: News | Province, Vale Inco reach deal

Another feather in Danny's cap. He must have enough to make a nice headdress by now. Chief Danny.

Who's doing the engineering on this project?

 

[lone wolf]

Sudbury just shuddered.

Right now, Voiseys Bay ore is concentrated there. It moves by ship to Quebec City where it's transferred to truck to be smelted here. I have no idea about sulphur contents in the imported ore but it's salting Sudbury's high content ores. Somehow, I suspect Sudbury's underground operations will cease ... and Inco will maintain their mineral rights here.

 

[mt_pockets1000]

A lucky find by a couple of persistant rock hounds...Voisey's Bay nickel. A find that eventually led to Inco and Falconbridge trying to outbid each other in an all out war for ownership of the mineral rights.

From the Vale Inco website: "As of year-end 2007, the Ovoid deposit contains estimated proven and probable resources of 28.9 million tonnes. In addition to the proven and probable reserves in the Ovoid, there are an additional 38.5 million tonnes of indicated resource and 6.3 million tonnes of inferred resource."

By 2007 the estimated life of the mine was 14 years. Data seems to indicate a much longer life than that.

Part of the deal the government of Newfoundland and Labrador made with Inco was to ship the ore to Sudbury, Ontario and Thompson, Manitoba until a smelter was built in the province. This deal puts the plan one step closer to reality.

LW it would be sad if Sudbury lost out because of this deal. Nobody likes to see people out of work and struggling to get by. Been there myself many times. Although Baie Verte was a small mining town (pop. 3000) when the mine shut down it left a lot of people in a desperate situation.

 

[lone wolf]

Sudbury Basin has been producing since the very late 1800's - and not just nickel and copper. Gold, silver and platinum keep the mines working while the staple price is down. When it's crazy high, even the waste is re-processed. New finds keep showing the deeper they go and magnetic anomality reveals a deposit almost as big under Lake Temagami. Sudbury's problem is the high sulphuric content of basin ores. Voiseys Bay ore is somewhat cleaner. If any Inco community loses work while the mines are producing it will be because it's cheaper to process ores in Brazil.