62 Contd on pg 61 By Gregory Reynolds The world s second lar gest producer of nickel believes its price is headed higher in 2015 V ale a global mining company with headquarters in Brazil is a leader in the production of iron ore and second in nickel In its third quarter report V ale said as the market begins to focus on 2015 the outlook for nickel contin ues to remain positive as depleted ore stocks are expected to result in lower the year leading the nickel market to pated higher prices The company does not follow the cal endar year so its third quarter ended Oct30 2014 V ale delivered a strong operational performance in that quarter with re cord production in a number of prod ucts such as iron ore copper and nickel It said the Base Metals Sector stood out with the best third quarter for nickel since 2008 in terms of produc tion W ith this our EBITDA earnings be fore interest taxes depreciation and amortization reached US3004 bil lion in 3Q14 slightly lower than in 2Q14 US41 billion This small decline in EBITDA com pared to the previous quarter is due mainly to the fall in the volume of iron ore sales and in the price of the product in the market dent that it has been doing its home work and is delivering both cost and expense reductions and increased volumes from our projects in order to continue generating value for our shareholders Revenues in 3Q14 reached US9249 billion representing a decrease of US830 million vs 2Q14 Revenues were negatively impacted by US1351 billion as a result of lower commodity prices and positive ly impacted by US521 million as a result of higher sales volumes Net loss was US1437 billion against a net income of US1428 billion in the previous quarter mainly driven by the noncash impact of foreign ex change and monetary losses on debt from the BRL depreciation against the US dollar In 3Q14 iron ore production reached 857 Mt the highest output in V ale s history The base metals operations im proved their adjusted EBITDA when compared to 2Q14 as a result of the sound performance of the Sudbury operations whose EBITDA increased by US21 1 million amounting to US402 million as it recovered from the scheduled maintenance stoppage Higher nickel prices seen by V a le following solid Sudbury pr oduction