12 12 Page 12 Contd on pg 14 By Frank Giorno V ale has faced challenges over the last year but as the company reported in its May 2018 Report to the Sudbury Community it is confdent of its future in Sudbury and that will position it to compete in providing nickel sulphate for electric vehicle batteries and the increasing demand for the stainless steel market The past year has truly been a time of transformation and we have a lot of information to share with you about our current operations and plans for the future the company stated in its May 2018 Report to the Sudbury Community Last year V ale and other nickel pro ducers experienced a prolonged global downturn in the nickel market Nickel price volatility capital require ments operating cost and productivity issues represent longterm challenges that V ale says it is meeting head on to ensure it contin ues to operate in Sud bury for years to come According to V ale s Q2 report nickel production from the Sudbury mines reached 13300 t in 2Q18 50 lower than in 1Q18 and 684 higher than in 2Q17 The decrease compared to 1Q18 was mai nly due to the strategic decision to increase Sudbury source inventory in advance of the planned 3Q18 scheduled maintenance shut down The increase compared to 2Q17 was mainly due to the planned maintenance shutdown conducted in 2Q17 when Sudbury started the tran sition to a single furnace operation As anticipated in the 1Q18 Produc tion and Sales Report the Coleman mine returned to operation in April 2018 following an unscheduled main tenance shutdown since November less Steel Forum ISSF production is expected to grow in 2018 but at a slower rate In 2017 world stainless steel melting production reached 481 million tonnes in 2017 a 58 percent growth year onyear Some of the factors for the growth in 2017 included Indonesia started producing stainless steel and it will continue to ramp up production Also nickelcontaining batteries had a posi tive efect on nickel usage and this trend is expected to continue China s nickel pig iron NPI produc tion recovered in 2017 after a decline in 2016 and is expected to increase further in 2018 W orld primary nickel production is projected to increase by the Interna Contd from pg 10 tional Nickel Study Group INSG to 2227 Mt in 2018 continuing an up ward swing over the past three years It was 2076 Mt in 2017 and 1989 Mt in 2016 The INSG forecasts an increase in primary nickel usage to 2344 Mt in 2018 W orld primary nickel usage was 2192 Mt in 2017 and 2033 Mt in 2016 INSG recognizes the signifcant im pact of the current fnancial econom ic and political uncertainties on com modity market s in many parts of the world and cautions that future market developments could be afected Following the increase in demand and the reduction in nickel stockpiles prices have also started to rise for nickel In the frst half of 2017 nickel was selling for an average price of US 443 per pound and but this year into the frst week of June nickel prices had clim bed to the US 7 per pound mark last week a gain of about 150 pound since last December It has dropped slightly to US 679 as of June 25 2018 The Sudbury Basin is still the world s secondlar gest nickel sulphide district in the world and it has advantages over other regions insofar as this deposit is available in a politically stable mining friendly country like Canada and ofers fully inte grated mines mills smelters and a refnery Nickel is widely used in over 300000 products for consumer industrial military transportaerospace marine and architectural applications Page 12 INSG for ecasts incr ease in nickel usage V ale pr ojects designed to secur e its futur e in the Sudbury Basin Page 13