Ever since NAL began producing spodumene concentrate, I have been tracking ships movements out of the Port of Quebec.
If you recall, they were originally going to ship the product out of Trois Rivières but changed it to the Port of Quebec.
The Port of Quebec is a deep water port capable of handling bigger ships classified as cape vessels, (too big for the Panama Canal).
Cape size vessels can carry loads of up to 170,000 DMT (which is about a years worth of production from NAL as it stands at the moment).
The first load out of the Port of Quebec was 22,000 tonnes and the rest of the loads since have averaged about 14,000 tonnes.
This tells me that there may be another reason for using the Port of Quebec in lieu of Trois Rivières.
We have been told in announcements that the marketing and sale of product from NAL is handled by an agency (not named).
As it happens, Glencore have a bulk ore facility at the Port of Quebec (Beauport). This facility receives nickel from Hudson’s Bay which is then sent to Ontario by rail to be refined. It then comes back to Beauport where it is then despatched to Europe.
Taking all of this into account makes me believe that the real reason our product goes to the Port of Quebec, is because it is Glencore that is marketing and selling the spodumene concentrate produced at NAL.
This is all well and good, we need someone to carry out this role, otherwise where would we be?
However, I am wondering what is the future for nickel out of Beauport, given that the demand for it has dropped off. From what I have read, big producers such as BHP are shutting down nickel operations. A big contributor to this, is the emergence of LFP battery technology over NMC technology.
Now I am thinking Glencore might want to repurpose the bulk ore facility at Beauport to become a major handler of lithium out of Quebec.
At the moment, spod from NAL is all they have but in years to come it may grow exponentially when Arcadium, Patriot, Winsome and Moblan all come on line.
If this is the plan (and I am only speculating it is) I hope Glencore looks after their original supplier (SYAQ.
Here endeth the thought bubble.
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We produce and market a wide range of metals and minerals such as copper, cobalt, zinc, nickel and ferroalloys. We also market aluminium/alumina and iron ore from third parties.”
https://www.glencore.com/what-we-do/metals-and-mineralshttps://www.glencore.ca/en/sudburyino/what-we-do/port-facilitieshttps://www.clarksons.com/glossary/a-guide-to-bulk-vessel-sizes/
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