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Vale May Overtake Norilsk Next Year to Be World's Largest Nickel Producer

iconOct 21, 2010 09:39
Source:SMM

Oct. 21 -- Vale SA, the world’s biggest iron- ore miner, may become the largest nickel producer by next year as it begins output at new projects in Brazil and New Caledonia, Chief Executive Officer Roger Agnelli said.

The Rio de Janeiro-based company has “very good” nickel reserves and is producing at full capacity from current assets, Agnelli said today at an analyst meeting in London. The company expects to start its Onca Puma nickel mine in Brazil’s Para state before year’s end and will also begin production at its New Caledonia project at the beginning of 2011, Agnelli said.

"We can increase our production and we are doing that and maybe next year we are going to become the largest nickel mining company in the world,” he said.

Vale produced 44,000 tons of nickel during the third quarter, 36 percent more than in the same period a year earlier, the company said in an Oct. 18 regulatory filing. Still, the company produced 114,000 tons in the first nine months of the year, 27 percent lower than in the year earlier period.

OAO GMK Norilsk Nickel, the world’s largest nickel company, produced 143,000 tons of the metal in the first half of 2010, the company said Oct. 4.

 

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