queen, page-3

re: canadas teck cominco eyeing up australian mine Most interesting article here.

Zinc mining companies are being paid more than spot......and according to Tech boss, LME supplies are NOT indicative of supply/demand macros, because stocks only remain in New Orleans.


Teck bullish on nickel, zinc

Ben Sharples
Tuesday, 8 August 2006

WITH base metal prices experiencing record highs, Teck Cominco believes the outlook for nickel and zinc prices over the next couple of years are strong, although the same positive sentiment has not been extended to copper.



Teck Cominco's Red Dog zinc mine, Alaska

Speaking on the sidelines of the Diggers and Dealers forum in Kalgoorlie, Teck president and chief executive Don Lindsay said the short-term outlook for nickel up until 2009 "looks very strong".

"I think it might be a little overdone at this point over $12 per pound and there is rumblings [sic] that nickel has been withheld from the LME," he said.

"So the world's natural production of nickel is not necessarily showing up on the market and we're a little cautious on the spot price, but we do think that between now and 2009 that it'll be very tight.

"If everything went perfectly, nickel could be in surplus in 2009, but generally in the mining world these days not everything goes perfectly, almost every project is delayed or costs more."

Turning to zinc, Lindsay said London Metal Exchange inventories were down from over 700,000 tonnes last year to about 190,000t, but the key factor was to look at the "next page of those reports".

"A very large proportion of the inventory is in one location in New Orleans," he said. "Unfortunately because of the hurricane last year, a lot of the zinc was contaminated and has to be rehabilitated and pressure washed and re-strapped and put back in."

Lindsay said stockpiles of zinc in Detroit were down to zero while the zinc price was fetching premiums as much as 15c per pound in Europe over the LME price and 10c/lb in the United States because the base metal was so scarce.

"Zinc looks very promising, we have a good handle on zinc," he said.

"We've visited over 150 different operations in China, we want to know as much as possible, more than [the Chinese] do about their zinc industry if we could, and it looks like the increases in production there have capped out now."

However, commenting on the red metal, Lindsay said Teck Cominco was "less positive on copper".

"The copper inventories are very tight but I think the copper industry has more ability to bring on new production and if the disruption in production ceases and things go very smoothly … then there would be a lot of production," he said.

"The International Copper Study Group did publish reports that copper was in surplus for the first part of this year. So we're a little more cautious on copper."