The Ambatovy mine is large

nickel Nickel is a chemical element with symbol Ni and atomic number 28. It is a silvery-white lustrous metal with a slight golden tinge. Nickel is a hard and ductile transition metal. Pure nickel is chemically reactive but large pieces are slow to ...

and

cobalt Cobalt is a chemical element with the symbol Co and atomic number 27. As with nickel, cobalt is found in the Earth's crust only in a chemically combined form, save for small deposits found in alloys of natural meteoric iron. The free element, pr ...

mine located in

Madagascar Madagascar (; mg, Madagasikara, ), officially the Republic of Madagascar ( mg, Repoblikan'i Madagasikara, links=no, ; french: République de Madagascar), is an island country in the Indian Ocean, approximately off the coast of East Africa ...

, off the east coast of Africa. It is currently active, and the largest mine in the country.

Ownership and operations

Several exploration permits for the site were acquired by

Phelps Dodge Phelps Dodge Corporation was an American mining company founded in 1834 as an import-export firm by Anson Greene Phelps and his two sons-in-law William Earle Dodge, Sr. and Daniel James. The latter two ran Phelps, James & Co., the part of the ...

in 1995. In 2004 and 2005 Phelps Dodge sold its interest in the project to

Dynatec Mining Limited DMC Mining Services is a mining services contractor, otherwise known as a mining contractor. Its headquarters are in Vaughan, Ontario, and Salt Lake City, Utah. The company began in 1980 as Dynatec Mining Limited. DMC Mining Services had three o ...

. The mine was set up in 2007 by

, a Canadian company, backed by international development groups including the

European Investment Bank The European Investment Bank (EIB) is the European Union's investment bank and is owned by the EU Member States. It is one of the largest supranational lenders in the world. The EIB finances and invests both through equity and debt solutions ...

Sherritt International Sherritt International is a Canadian resource company, based in Toronto, Ontario. Sherritt is a world leader in the mining and refining of nickel and cobalt – metals essential for the growing adoption of electric vehicles. Its Technologies Grou ...

acquired Dynatec and later handed over majority control of the mine to the Japanese

Sumitomo Corporation is one of the largest worldwide ''sogo shosha'' general trading companies, and is a diversified corporation. The company was incorporated in 1919 and is a member company of the Sumitomo Group. It is listed on three Japanese stock exchanges ( ...

. The rest of equity in the mine is held by a

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and sharing a Korean Demilitarized Zone, land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed ...

n consortium lead by the state-owned ''Korea Mine Rehabilitation and Mineral Resources Corporation'' (KOMIR), as well as

STX Corporation STX Corporation (Hangul: 에스티엑스) is a publicly held South Korean holding company engaged in the provision of trading services. Headquartered in Gyeongsangnamdo, South Korea, the company operates its business through two divisions: trad ...

and

POSCO POSCO (formerly Pohang Iron and Steel Company) is a South Korean steel-making company headquartered in Pohang, South Korea. It had an output of of crude steel in 2015, making it the world's fourth-largest steelmaker by this measure. In 2010, i ...

. Until 2020, when it halted production due to the

COVID-19 pandemic in Madagascar The COVID-19 pandemic in Madagascar is part of the ongoing worldwide pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 () caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (). On 20 March 2020, the first case in Madagascar was confirmed in Antanana ...

, the mine was producing 5,600 tonnes of refined cobalt and almost 60,000 tonnes of refined nickel every year. Operations resumed in March of 2021. After running at a loss from 2014 to 2020, the mine became profitable in 2021, especially after a large increase in nickel prices due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Social and environmental impacts

Ambatovy is the largest investment in Madagascar’s history. The mine employs 10,000 people, of which 8,000 are Malagasy, and provides 27 per cent of the country's tax revenues. The mine has been criticised for its local environmental impacts. The open pit mine displaced 1,600 hectares (3,950 acres) of rainforest and is connected by a 200km long open slurry canal to the processing plant at

Toamasina Toamasina (), meaning "like salt" or "salty", unofficially and in French Tamatave, is the capital of the Atsinanana region on the east coast of Madagascar on the Indian Ocean. The city is the chief seaport of the country, situated northeast of it ...

, which has a 750-hectare (1,850-acre) area of lakes where waste materials are dumped. Effluent is also released into the sea, leading to complaints from fishermen. On the other hand, the mine is among the first to fully offset the loss of forest from mining operations.

References

{{reflist Nickel mines in Madagascar 2007 establishments in Madagascar