From the WSA thread-
Media starting to chatter again about Ni takeovers in WA Ni industry -
PAN will be controlled by IGO after it takes WSA
What will BHP IGO AF do now they ask?
Where will BHP get all that ore from?
BHP t/o WMC for $9.2B in 2005 but let go of Noront for $350M?! So IGO a target for them also.
Only MCR POS left imho.
Who are the houses in nickel’s Game of Thrones?One of the world’s top five nickel producers, BHP is the dominant player in WA thanks to its integrated network of Goldfields mines and concentrators, the Kalgoorlie nickel smelter and Kambalda nickel refinery – infrastructure it would take billions of dollars to build from scratch today.
With its predecessor Western Mining Corporation, which BHP consumed in a $9.2 billion takeover in 2005, having sold its mines in Kambalda to smaller companies like Mincor, IGO and
Panoramic Resources (ASX
AN), BHP has long resisted the urge to bid for them.
Forrest is lurking in WA, too, as a
long-time holder and former chairman of Poseidon Nickel (ASXOS), which owns the Black Swan, Mt Windarra and Lake Johnston projects.He holds stakes in Western Areas and Mincor as well, making him a potential player in the outcome of IGO’s WSA takeover, and Wyloo Metals chief Luca Giacovazzi recently told the West Australian the time was coming for a
WA nickel consolidation play.
Upstart IGO has a stake in Mincor after selling its Long mine to the company a couple of years ago, and has previously bid for Panoramic, the owner of the Savannah nickel-copper-cobalt mine near Halls Creek in the Kimberley.
If it wins its bid for WSA it will emerge with Western Areas’ 19.9% stake in PAN as well.
Further down the food chain is Mincor, which will begin nickel production from its Kambalda and Widgiemooltha mines for the first time in almost 7 years in 2022, supplying enough ore to restart BHP’s Kambalda Concentrator.
It owns most of the historic WMC mines on the Kambalda Dome, home to 1.6Mt of historic nickel metal production. The only others are the Foster and Jan mines owned by 2021 float
Lunnon Metals (ASX:LM8) and
Lanfranchi, owned privately by Poseidon shareholder Black Mountain Metals and Tembo Capital.
Further left of field
Chalice Mining (ASX:CHN) has become a $3 billion company after unveiling the world’s largest nickel sulphide resource in 20 years at its Julimar nickel-copper-PGE discovery near Perth and will no doubt be looked at by suitors in the coming years.
(20min delay)