[SMM brief Review] the operation of Ambatovy Nickel Mine is expected to resume fully in mid-late April.

According to recent reports, Japanese trading company Sumitomo said on Monday that its Ambatovy nickel mine project in Madagascar had resumed operations on March 23, which was closed in March last year because of the novel coronavirus epidemic. It is reported that Sumitomo has previously said that it aims to produce 3000 tons of nickel in the January-March quarter. On March 26th last year, Sumitomo announced the suspension of mining operations due to an epidemic. Sumitomo hereby announced that it would temporarily suspend its silver, zinc and lead mining project Minera San Cristobal in Bolivia and the Ambatovy nickel project in Malaysia to prevent the spread of the virus.

The Ambatovy project is a large tonnage, long-life nickel-cobalt mining enterprise located in Madagascar. With a total cost of US $8 billion, the Ambatovy project is the largest foreign investment in the country's history and one of the largest in sub-Saharan Africa and the Indian Ocean. It is one of the largest laterite nickel mining entities in the world, and Ambatovy aims to be a leader in operational efficiency, health and safety, environmental management and social participation, while contributing to Madagascar's long-term prosperity. There are three investors in the Ambatovy nickel project: Sumitomo Corporation of Japan (47.7%), Korea Resources (40.3%) and Sherit of Canada (12%).

After investigating and verifying with people familiar with the matter, SMM learned that Ambatovy had restarted sulphuric acid production in the sulphuric acid plant from March 11 to 16, and began to resume full production on March 20. Another source pointed out that the output time of the product depends on the resumption process, if the previous stock raw materials are used, it is expected to produce nickel beans as soon as possible. If a full recovery is considered, it may be after mid-late April.

Related reading: "[SMM investigation] the resumption of production of the Ambatovir Nickel Bean Project novel coronavirus epidemic situation is still the biggest challenge."