by 5,000 tonnes

Main nickel producer to boost production by 5,000 tonnes by 2001

NEW Caledonia’s Societe Le Nick el (SEN) is to boost its annual nickel production by 5,000 tonnes per year by 2001, SEN President Yves Rambaud said late October.

“Our short term target is to produce 62,000 tonnes yearly, as opposed to 57,000 in 1999, with a production cost 15 per cent lower compared to 1998,” Rambaud said after SLN’s annual general meeting of the Board of Directors.

World nickel prices have recently gone up from a less than two US dollars per pound to a current 3.2 dollars.

Rambaud estimated the current world demand on nickel was slightly above the one million ton mark.

“In the middle run, in between three to five years, SEN will increase its pro duction to a yearly 70,000 tonnes,” he

pointed out.

“We will spend most of the year 2000 studying the feasibility of such a tar get, because this will impact on the com pany’s strategy for the next ten years,” he said.

Costs could be reduced through a down sizing of the workforce.

SLN’s main nickel melting plant is located in Noumea, with extraction sites

throughout the territory.

Two other projects, one in the South, promoted by Canadian group Inco, the other in the North, led by another Canadian investor, Falconbridge, are cur rently under construction.

SLN’s mother group, Eramet, was privatised in February this year, with the French government becoming a minority shareholder (30 per cent), the rest being now held by private interests.

Through exploitation of manganese,

nickel and special ores, Eramet, which employs 17,000 people worldwide, has made a turnover of 17 billion French Francs (over three billion US dollars) last financial year. In the past ten years, Eram et’s turnover has increased eight-fold.

(PINA Nius Online) ■