Bad phase for nickel industry

ALTHOUGH reserves of nickel ore on the London Metal Exchanges are return ing to a “normal” 120,000 tons, and although an upward movement in the American economy could lead to a greater demand for nickel, the New Caledonians employed on extracting sites are concerned the employers announced 200 layoffs for the beginning of 1994, and the immediate future is bleak. Therefore, SOENC mines (Union of Mine Workers and Employees of New Caledonia), the largest union in the business, launched a 24-hour general strike on all mining sites on January 19, which almost totally paralysed extrac tion.

Backed by the Transport Union (small contractors who transport the ore in their own trucks), they also blocked the main road of New Caledonia, 30 km north of Noumea for more than 30 hours with their excavators and giant mining trucks.

Not coincidentally, this action took place during the seven-day mission of a team of mining experts from Paris. They had come to examine the possible increase by five or 10 hundredths of the maximum nickel content in the exported ore in 1994 (actually - 2.55 per cent).

This issue is dividing the New Cale donian producers. For Raphael Pidjot, the manager of SMSP, (sold by Jacques Lafleur to the pro-independence North ern Province in 1990, and turned into the largest nickel exporter of New Cale donia), “it’s a matter of survival”.

“Our only asset is the high grade of our ore. The Philippines and Indonesia sell 20 per cent cheaper than us to Japanese buyers, because of their lower cost of labor”, he explains. The other producers disagree they think that selling an ore with a higher nickle content will “skim” the best veins for good, and will lead to more layoffs, since the extracted and exported quantities will diminish. Every body agrees that 1994 will be a “difficult year” one or two of the four New Caledonian exporters of nickel ore to Japan could well disappear. A terrible blow in what is by far the main activity of the territory.

People In The News • Jacques Michaut arrived in New Caledonia to become the new deputy general secretary of the territory. The position has remained vacant for six months.

• Tegoeh Wahyono Notoprayitno is

the new Consul General for Indonesia in Noumea. He previously served in Denmark, USSR, Mexico, Switzer land and Saudi Arabia. □

The road block: on January 20