New Caledonia Nouvelle-Calédonie - Business Advantage ...

CREDIT: SMSP
the vavouto plant under ConstruCtion adjaCent to the north provinCe’s koniambo massif
10
mINING & RESOURCES
NICKEL SECTOR BOUNCES BACK
New Caledonia is a major world producer of nickel and, with two major new nickel projects well
under way, the future of the territory’s mining sector looks strong.
New Caledonia contains 25% of world’s nickel
reserves
Two major new nickel plants under construction:
Koniambo (Northern Province) and Goro (Southern
Province)
New Mining Code recently introduced Major services
opportunities
Talk about mining in New Caledonia, and you’re
talking mainly about one metal: nickel. New
Caledonia contains about 25% of the world’s nickel
reserves and is one of the top five global exporters of
a metal that is a major constituent in stainless steel.
Nickel mining and smelting has occurred in New Caledonia
since the 1880s. In fact, the industrial centre of Noumea could
be said to have grown up around Societé Le Nickel’s (SLN)
massive Doniambo nickel smelter, which is fed by five nickel
mines across the main island of Grand Terre. Nickel ore in New
Caledonia—25% high grade saprolites and 75% limonites—is
mined from surface quarries.
mINING SECTOR BOOmING
Two major new nickel plants have been in the pipeline for some
time: the US$3.85 billion Xstrata-led Koniambo project in
Northern Province and the Southern Province’s US$3.2 billion
Goro nickel project, operated by Brazil’s Vale.
When Business Advantage visited New Caledonia in October
2008, world nickel prices were in free fall due to the global
financial crisis. Consequently, the construction timetables for the
two major new mines became uncertain. Since that visit, however,
prices have rallied somewhat and significant progress has been
made.
‘The nickel sector is booming,’ observes Serge Lallenec,
Manager of Operations in New Caledonia for Hatch, the EPCM
(engineering procurement, construction and management)
contractor, in partnership with France’s Technip, for the Koniambo
Project. ‘Two brand new major nickel plants with such a low
population is a bonanza.’
KONIAmBO mAKING PROGRESS
Of the two new projects, the Koniambo or Vavouto project
is seen as the more strategic, given its role in stimulating the
underdeveloped Northern Province economy. Construction is
well under way and the 60,000 tonnes per annum plant could be
producing refined nickel as early as mid-2012 (see page 12).
GORO NICKEL
In the first half of 2010, progress at Vale’s Goro Nickel project
was stalled by a number of technical challenges with its first
commissioning cycle tantalisingly ‘91% complete’. Once the
current production problems have been overcome, the annual
capacity of the plant will be 60,000 tonnes of nickel oxide and
4,500 tonnes of cobalt carbonate.
SLN INCREASES PRODUCTION
Société Le Nickel (SLN) is the world’s fifth largest producer of
nickel, producing about 12% of world production, and is the
world’s largest world producer of ferro-nickel. In a clear sign that
normality is returning to the nickel sector, SLN announced in June
2010 that production at Doniambo would rise to 56,000 tonnes in
2010, after falling in 2009. SLN expect annual production to reach
65,000 tonnes by 2014.
‘Following a new Mining Law
in 2009, the New Caledonian
Government introduced a new Mining
Code in 2010.’
NEW mINING CODE
Following a new Mining Law in 2009, the New Caledonian
Government introduced a new Mining Code in 2010. The Code
is designed to bring together and simplify the laws under which
mining takes place. In particular, it enhances the regulatory role of
the Government’s mining directorate, DIMENC, and encourages
the onshore processing of nickel ore.
PROVIDING SERVICES
The two major new projects are providing significant opportunities
for companies to provide a wide range of goods and services. As
well as Hatch, which also works with US construction company
Bechtel in New Caledonia, other international companies
providing services to the sector include Canadian earth sciences
specialist Golder Associates and Australia’s Salmon Earth Moving.
PROVIDING THE RIGHT PEOPLE
Finding the right people in the mining sector’s tight skills market is
a constant challenge, however.
‘The universal fact is that there is an extreme shortage of skilled
people in the Pacific,’ John Davidson, Managing Director of
Australia-based specialist mining recruiter JDA & Associates tells
Business Advantage. JDA recently formed a joint venture with New
Caledonia’s Atout Majeur to meet the human resources needs of the
nickel projects.