{"id":1186476,"date":"2020-05-26T05:16:11","date_gmt":"2020-05-26T10:16:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mining.com\/?p=1025002"},"modified":"2020-05-26T05:16:11","modified_gmt":"2020-05-26T10:16:11","slug":"new-century-eyes-vales-new-caledonia-mines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/?p=1186476","title":{"rendered":"New Century eyes Vale\u2019s New Caledonia mines"},"content":{"rendered":"

Australia\u2019s New Century Resources (ASX: NCZ) has confirmed rumours of talks with Vale (NYSE: VALE) to buy the Brazilian miner\u2019s nickel and cobalt operations<\/a> on the Pacific island of New Caledonia.<\/p>\n

The Melbourne-based zinc producer said on Tuesday<\/a> it had entered into a 60-day exclusivity period with Vale to complete due diligence and negotiate the acquisition of 95% of Vale Nouvelle Cal\u00e9donie (VNC). <\/p>\n

VNC owns and operates the troubled Goro nickel-cobalt mine on the French territory, which has proven a financial burden for Vale since it began operations<\/a>, two years behind schedule, in 2010.<\/p>\n

The Rio de Janeiro-based miner first announced its intention to exit operations in New Caledonia in December<\/a>. The decision came after it had to write down $1.6 billion in the fourth quarter related to the ailing mines, the world\u2019s biggest nickel operations.<\/p>\n

Vale cut in April its 2020 nickel production guidance<\/a> to 200,000-210-000 tonnes per year from 240,000 tpy to account for the anticipated loss of VNC\u2019s 60,000-tpy output.<\/p>\n

Shortly after, the miner revealed it had received non-binding offers for VNC<\/a>, which includes the Goro mine, a processing plant and the port of Prony.<\/p>\n

The companies didn\u2019t disclose financial
\ndetails of the deal, but Vale had previously said it would book a $400 million
\nimpairment on any sale.<\/p>\n

New Century noted if the transaction goes through, the financial terms would include a fiscal package to help with transitioning VNC\u2019s operations from Vale Canada.<\/p>\n

Major nickel-cobalt player <\/strong><\/h2>\n

Australian nickel miner IGO Ltd (ASX: IGO), which became New Century\u2019s top shareholder in April after taking an 18.4% stake, was supportive of the deal and intended to discuss MHP offtake arrangements in the future, it said.<\/p>\n

Both Vale and New Century also plan
\nto consult France\u2019s government, as New Caledonia is among the nation\u2019s
\nterritories, to confirm its continued financing support for the mine.<\/p>\n

Goro\u2019s acquisition, New Century
\nsaid, would make it a major supplier of nickel and cobalt sourced from outside
\nthe Democratic Republic of Congo. The African country is currently the world\u2019s
\nbiggest supplier of cobalt for the electric vehicles (EVs) sector.<\/p>\n

While the ailing mine has the
\ncapacity to produce 60,000 tpy of nickel in the form of nickel oxide, it
\nchurned out just 23,400 tonnes of nickel in 2019. That\u2019s slightly over a third
\nof its annual capacity.
\nThe operation has never fully mastered the challenging high-pressure-acid-lead
\n(HPAL) technology used to convert ore to nickel oxides, leaving VNC unable to
\nproduce preferential battery material nickel sulfate.<\/p>\n

Vale believes the nickel market
\nwill enter a surplus in 2020, compared with its previous view of continued
\ndeficits. Its long-term outlook, however, remains positive due to factors
\nincluding demand for nickel in the batteries that power EVs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The zinc miner plans to buy 95% of Vale’s assets on the Pacific island of New Caledonia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[949,369,2640],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1186476"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1186476"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1186476\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1186523,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1186476\/revisions\/1186523"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1186476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1186476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1186476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}