Still More Nickel-Plating
p. 37 · Read in the full issue
From a Noumea correspondent Caledonians hardly stirred at the October announcement of yet another mining group seeking Paris approval to exploit the island’s nickel reserves. After the long monopoly of the Societe Le Nickel, this most recent move is the third new company to be announced for the island this year.
This latest entry is a consortium formed by the Societe Le Nickel, with the Patino Mining Corporation of Canada and several Caledonian interests. The group intends to build a factory in the relatively un developed north of the island, to start production at the end of 1972.
The Societe le Nickel, which pro duced 38,000 tons of nickel last year (approximately one tenth of the world’s supply) expects to produce 70.000 tons in 1972 and hopes the new factory will raise this output to 110.000 tons by the following year.
TTie SLN chairman, Mr. Louis Devaux, predicted in Noumea last May that within the next ten years New Caledonia will supply 25 per cent, of the world nickel.
The first foreign company to be allowed into New Caledonian mining was the giant INCO (International Nickel Company of Canada), which after several years of negotiation with the Paris government was authorised to enter the territory last March.
INCO joined with a number of French companies to form a new consortium, COFIMPAC. The group has done extensive prospecting throuehout the island, concentrating its efforts in the south on the Plaine
des Lacs. The new group claims to have already spent some $A2m since the beginning of 1968, when the first prospecting began.
During his March visit to Noumea, INCO President Albert Gagnebin declared that the COFIMPAC group would become “one of the most important nickel producing companies in the world”. Main tasks ahead include the construction of a factory with road and port facilities. The target production of 50,000 tons of nickel per year is not likely to be realised till four years time.
In the middle of the year another group Pennaroya Amax sought France’s permission to enter New Caledonia. It outlined plans to pro duce 45,000 tons of nickel towards 1975.
Directors of this French-American alliance flew to Noumea in August to meet local authorities.
Mr. lan MacGregor, president of the American giant, Amax (whose latest interests include Mt. Newman, West Australian iron) told PIM in Noumea that New Caledonia could be proud of the great contribution her overseas nickel earnings are making towards helping stabilise the metropolitan French franc.
In the background, the Nickel Company's works in Noumea. Foreground, a recently completed expressway out of the town.