Miners advance projects against backdrop of healthy nickel price
As nickel companies expand production at their Kalgoorlie projects, a leading market analyst said a US$20,000 a tonne price would be sustainable in the medium term as long as there were no adverse movements in foreign exchange.
Huge rise in Asian nickel demand
The 2010 forecast nickel consumption is 1.39m tonnes at an average price of US$21,350 per tonne or US$9.70 a pound, Carey Smith of Alto Capital told the Paydirt 2010 Australian Nickel Conference in Perth.
Mr Smith said he expected consumption to increase to 1.575m tonnes in 2015 while still holding a price about US$20,000 a tonne, or US$9.10 a pound.
Asian economies would dominate future growth for nickel over the next five years, he said.
China had moved from an average of 4.5% of global nickel consumption in the 1990s to more than 30% today – more than 350,000 tonnes per annum – and stainless steel output continued to be strong.
Mincor Resources has forecast at least another decade of strong profits from the Kambalda region as it hasa high level of remaining nickel sulphide prospectivity and an extraordinary rate of recent discovery.
Mincor has set an exploration spend for 2010/11 of $15m to deliver what managing direct David Moore described as “game-changing exploration plays” within the southern province.
Meanwhile, Poseidon Nickel chief executive David Singleton said he expected to produce first concentrate from the vast Windarra nickel sulphide deposits in the north north in under two years with an initial US$55m spend.
