Resource World Magazine

A P R I L / M A Y 2 0 2 0 www.resourceworld.com 29 In Madagascar, Sherritt's Ambatovy nickel cobalt JV (operator Sherritt 12%, other partners include Sumitomo and Korea Resources Corporation) mines, pro - cesses, refines and markets Class I finished nickel. In 2019, production at Ambatovy was 33,733 tonnes of finished nickel and 2,900 tonnes of cobalt. Sherritt licenses its proprietary tech - nologies and provides metallurgical services to mining and refining operations worldwide. Glencore PLC [GLEN-LSE; GLN- Jo'burg; GLNCY-OTC] owns and operates the Raglan Mine located 15 km south of the northern tip of the Ungava (Nunavik) Peninsula in far northern Quebec. The company is currently operating four underground mines at Raglan that gen - erate 100% of the project's total ore production: Katinniq, Mine 2, Kikialik and Qakimarjurq. Approximately 1.3 million tonnes of ore is treated annually at the concentrator resulting in more than 39,000 tonnes of nickel-in-concentrate annually. Mill capac - ity is 3,000 tonnes per day. The nickel concentrate is trucked 100 km to the Deception Bay seaport facilities, where it is stored in a dome warehouse until shipped to Quebec City via the 27,000-metric tonne capacity ice breaker (MV Arctic). Upon arrival, the concentrate is shipped by rail to Glencore's smelter in Sudbury, Ontario. There the concentrate is melted and cast into matte, which is sent back to Québec City via rail, then shipped to Glencore's refinery in the coastal city of Kristiansand, Norway, where the unwrought mineral is turned into pure metals before being sold globally. Vale [VALE-NYSE], headquartered in Brazil, is the world's largest producer of iron ore and iron ore pellets and the world's largest producer of nickel with nickel mines and operations in Brazil (Onça Puma), Canada (Sudbury, Ontario; Thompson, Manitoba; Voisey's Bay, Labrador), Indonesia (PTVI), and New Caledonia (VNC) as well as fully-owned and joint venture refineries in China, South Korea, Japan, the U.K. and Taiwan. Vale's reported production of finished nickel reached 208 kt in 2019, in line with the annual guidance of 210–220 kt, and 15.0% lower than 2018. Vale stated, in the production report, that lower 2019 production "reflected lower feed from third parties, lower source ore from Thompson and VNC, the latter due to limited avail- ability of process plant operational assets during the year, as well as lower production from Onça Puma prior to receiving judicial authorisation to resume both mine and pro- cessing activities in September." The company stated that nickel opera- tions were also impacted during the year due to maintenance shutdowns at the North Atlantic refineries, which have been resumed and are now operating at regular rates. The refining activities in VNC, respon - sible for processing the feed into nickel oxide, will cease from April 2020 onwards, as part of the process to improve short- term cash flow. With this flowsheet simplification, VNC's nickel product mix will be solely comprised of nickel hydrox - ide cake. KGHM Polska Miedz SA's [KGH- Warsaw] is a multinational miner whose assets include the 100%-owned copper nickel Victoria Project, located in Ontario, 35 km west of Sudbury. KGHM says, "The project is currently in the phase of devel - opment and analysis." Based on 2017 analytical work, the baseline scenario assumes two phases of development: the sinking of the first shaft, with additional exploration work and, later, the sinking of the production shaft. KGHM plans to process the ore at Vale's Clarabelle plant in Sudbury. In Sudbury KGHM also has McCreedy West underground mine now in produc - tion. n Project success at the earliest opportunity GR Engineering Services recently acquired Hanlon Engineering & Associates, Inc., based in Arizona, USA. Together, GR Engineering and Hanlon have the multi-disciplinary capacity to deliver high quality engineering design and construction services to the mining and mineral processing industries. As a group the companies are currently engaged to provide engineering, procurement and commissioning of a new HIGmill circuit and autogenous mill for the San Dimas Silver Mine in Durango, Mexico. Learn more at www.gres.com.au Denver +1 3o3 881 4401 Tucson +1 520 326 0062 Providing Global Mineral Processing Solutions ssociates, inc. ngineering anlon NICKEL

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