miningnews 05/04/2004

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Nickel market headed for shortfall: Canaccord


Monday, April 05, 2004
A WARNING that the world is headed for a major shortfall in nickel supplies has been repeated forcefully by a senior analyst with the Canadian stockbroking firm, Canaccord Capital.

Greg Barnes said in a study of the world nickel market that a series of major new nickel mines were needed over the next six years to plug a supply/demand gap of 180,000 tonnes of nickel a year by 2010, equivalent to an estimated 10% of the world nickel market.

According to a Reuters report of Barnes' analysis US$10 billion worth of nickel projects which could supply 400,000 tonnes of nickel are on the table.

However, only a third, equivalent to 124,000 tonnes of nickel and costing US$2.7 billion, have been given the green light.

Nearly half of the proposed new projects are based on laterite ores using some form of pressure acid leach.

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