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A nickel mine is a mine that produces
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 ...
. Some mines produce nickel primarily, while some mines produce nickel as a side-product of some other
metal A metal (from Greek μέταλλον ''métallon'', "mine, quarry, metal") is a material that, when freshly prepared, polished, or fractured, shows a lustrous appearance, and conducts electricity and heat relatively well. Metals are typica ...
that has a higher concentration in the ore.


Geology

Nickel occurs in two general types of ores, sulfides and oxides. The most important sulfide ore is
pentlandite Pentlandite is an iron–nickel sulfide with the chemical formula . Pentlandite has a narrow variation range in Ni:Fe but it is usually described as having a Ni:Fe of 1:1. It also contains minor cobalt, usually at low levels as a fraction of wei ...
(Ni9S8) although many other nickel sulfides are known. Furthermore, nickel is often a constituent of iron sulfides such as
pyrrhotite Pyrrhotite is an iron sulfide mineral with the formula Fe(1-x)S (x = 0 to 0.2). It is a nonstoichiometric variant of FeS, the mineral known as troilite. Pyrrhotite is also called magnetic pyrite, because the color is similar to pyrite and it is ...
. The principal (i.e. economically most important) nickel oxides are nickeliferous
limonite Limonite () is an iron ore consisting of a mixture of hydrated iron(III) oxide-hydroxides in varying composition. The generic formula is frequently written as FeO(OH)·H2O, although this is not entirely accurate as the ratio of oxide to hydroxide ...
((Fe1−xNix)O(OH)·nH2O). Pentlandite supplies an estimated 65% of the world's nickel but nickel laterites constitute the largest reserves.


Extraction

Nickel content of its ores is often only a few percent by weight. Sulfide ores are subjected to commutation followed by
froth flotation Froth flotation is a process for selectively separating hydrophobic materials from hydrophilic. This is used in mineral processing, paper recycling and waste-water treatment industries. Historically this was first used in the mining industry, wher ...
. Pentlandite and related minerals separate with sulfides of copper, cobalt, and iron. Two hydrometallurgical methods have been developed to extract nickel and cobalt from nickel laterites, these processes are called sulphuric acid leaching and reduction roast-ammonia leaching. For high-magnesium silicates in lower profiles laterites the exploitation method used is smelting.


Reserves and operations


Reserves production

According to the intergovernmental International Nickel Study Group, in 2017 the countries with the largest volume of nickel ore reserves are Australia (19.5 million metric tons), Brazil (10.5 million metric tons), Russia (7.5 million metric tons), New Caledonia (6.5 million metric tons), Cuba (5.5 million metric tons), and the Philippines (just under 5 million metric tons). As of 2017, 33 countries produced nickel ore. Nickel production increased from 2000 to 2013 (when it peaked), decreased from 2014 to 2016, and recovered from 2017 to 2018.


Largest mines and operators

As of 2017, the largest nickel mine operators are (in descending order of kilotonnes mined): * Vale SA, which operates Sudbury Mine (Canada),
Voisey's Bay Mine Voisey's Bay Mine is a nickel mine in Labrador, Canada, near the bay of the same name. The mine is located about southwest of Nain. Nickel deposit A large nickel deposit was discovered in the hills along the western shore of Potato Islan ...
(Canada), Sorowako mine (Indonesia), VNC Goro mine (
New Caledonia ) , anthem = "" , image_map = New Caledonia on the globe (small islands magnified) (Polynesia centered).svg , map_alt = Location of New Caledonia , map_caption = Location of New Caledonia , mapsize = 290px , subdivision_type = Sovereign st ...
), Onca Puma mine (Brazil) and Thompson (Canada). *
Norilsk Nickel Norilsk Nickel (russian: ГМК «Норильский никель»), or Nornickel, is a Russian nickel and palladium mining and smelting company. Its largest operations are located in the Norilsk–Talnakh area near the Yenisei River in the no ...
, which operates Kola Division (Russia) and Nkomati mine (South Africa). *
Glencore Glencore plc is a Swiss multinational commodity trading and mining company with headquarters in Baar, Switzerland. Glencore's oil and gas head office is in London and its registered office is in Saint Helier, Jersey. The current company was ...
, which operates Integrated Nickel Operations (Canada), Murrin Murrin (Australia), and
Koniambo mine The Koniambo mine is a large mine Mine, mines, miners or mining may refer to: Extraction or digging *Miner, a person engaged in mining or digging *Mining, extraction of mineral resources from the ground through a mine Grammar *Mine, a first-p ...
(New Caledonia). *
BHP BHP Group Limited (formerly known as BHP Billiton) is an Australian multinational mining, metals, natural gas petroleum public company that is headquartered in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. The Broken Hill Proprietary Company was founded ...
, which operates Nickel West (Australia). BHP formerly owned
Ravensthorpe Nickel Mine The Ravensthorpe Nickel Mine is a nickel mine and hydrometallurgical processing plant located at Bandalup Hill, east of Ravensthorpe, Western Australia. Built by BHP Billiton, it was closed in January 2009, after less than a year of operatio ...
in
Ravensthorpe, Western Australia Ravensthorpe is a town 541 km south-east of Perth and 40 km inland from the south coast of Western Australia. It is the seat of government of the Shire of Ravensthorpe. At the , Ravensthorpe had a population of 438. In 1848, the area ...
; the mine closed in January 2009. *
Anglo American plc Anglo American plc is a British listed multinational mining company with headquarters in London, England. It is the world's largest producer of platinum, with around 40% of world output, as well as being a major producer of diamonds, copper, ...
, which operates Barro Alto (Brazil) and Codemin (Brazil). *
South32 South32 is a mining and metals company headquartered in Perth, Western Australia. It was spun out of BHP Billiton on 18 May 2015. It is listed on the Australian Securities Exchange with secondary listings on the Johannesburg and London Stock E ...
, which operates Cerro Matoso mine ( Colombia). * Sumitomo Metal Mining Co. (SMM), which operates Sorowako (Indonesia) and Ambatovy mine (
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 ...
). The company is a subsidiary of the ''
keiretsu A is a set of companies with interlocking business relationships and shareholdings. In the legal sense, it is a type of informal business group that are loosely organized alliances within the social world of Japan's business community. The ''k ...
''
Sumitomo Group The is one of the largest Japanese ''keiretsu'', or business groups, founded by Masatomo Sumitomo (1585-1652) around 1615 during the early Edo period. History The Sumitomo Group traces its roots to a bookshop in Kyoto founded circa 1615 by Masa ...
. * Western Areas, which operates Spotted Quoll mine (Australia) and Flying mine (Australia). * Lundin Mining, which operates Eagle Mine (United States). * Terrafame Ltd., which operates Talvivaara mine in
Sotkamo Sotkamo is a municipality of Finland, located in the Kainuu region about east of Kajaani, the capital of Kainuu. Vuokatti, in west of Sotkamo, is the most populous village in the municipality and also a popular skiing resort. Both Hiidenportti Na ...
(
Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Both ...
). Other large nickel producers include Jinchuan Group Ltd., the largest nickel producer in China, and Sherritt, a Canadian company from Canada that refines nickel from lateritic ores and has operations in Canada, Cuba, Indonesia and Madagascar.


Usage

According to the intergovernmental International Nickel Study Group, as of 2017, an estimated 75% of primary nickel usage went to stainless steel; 3.7% went to the battery industry; and the remainder went to other applications.


Hazards

A study was conducted by scientists Dan et al on the effects of Nickel smelting fumes, to do this they did the study on NIH/3T3 cells and in the lung tissue of rats. They found that the fumes that the NIH/3T3 cells were transforming into malignant cells meaning that high exposure to Ni-smelting fumes may be harmful as Ni-smelting fumes may be a potential carcinogen in mammalian cells.


In the Philippines

In the 2000s, a nickel boom began centered around Claver, Surigao del Norte in the
Philippines The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no), * bik, Republika kan Filipinas * ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas * cbk, República de Filipinas * hil, Republ ...
; in 2017, the government of the Philippines (then the world's largest exporter of nickel ore) engaged in a crackdown against mine operators accused of violating environmental laws; the government closed the operations of 28 of the Philippine's 41 mining companies. In 2020, the Philippines became the world's largest producer of nickel ore, after Indonesia halted nickel ore exports; both countries had extensively supplied China, the world's largest purchaser of nickel ore. The two largest Philippine nickel companies are Nickel Asia Corp. and Global Ferronickel Holdings Inc.; both operate in the
Surigao del Norte Surigao del Norte ( Surigaonon: ''Probinsya nan Surigao del Norte''; ceb, Amihanang Surigao; Tagalog: ''Hilagang Surigao''), officially the Province of Surigao del Norte, is a province in the Philippines located in the Caraga region of Mindanao. ...
region. Nickel mines in the Philippines, while beneficial to the economy, have been harmful to both human health and well-being as well as to the environment. One example of this is in the Mindoro Oriental region, where nickel mines have left behind toxic mine tailings. This has polluted the water, which is necessary for both humans to drink as well as for them to use for agricultural practices. The nickel mines have also destroyed lands that indigenous tribes have lived on for generations.


Nickel mine pollution

From 1953 to 1958 Nickel Rim mines operating around
Sudbury, Ontario Sudbury, officially the City of Greater Sudbury is the largest city in Northern Ontario by population, with a population of 166,004 at the 2021 Canadian Census. By land area, it is the largest in Ontario and the fifth largest in Canada. It is a ...
deposited their mine
tailings In mining, tailings are the materials left over after the process of separating the valuable fraction from the uneconomic fraction (gangue) of an ore. Tailings are different to overburden, which is the waste rock or other material that overlie ...
in an impoundment near the mine. The water in the impoundment was later tested and found to have low pH and high concentrations of
iron Iron () is a chemical element with symbol Fe (from la, ferrum) and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 of the periodic table. It is, by mass, the most common element on Earth, right in fr ...
,
sulphur Sulfur (or sulphur in British English) is a chemical element with the symbol S and atomic number 16. It is abundant, multivalent and nonmetallic. Under normal conditions, sulfur atoms form cyclic octatomic molecules with a chemical formula ...
and dissolved metals such as aluminum and nickel. This is due to the oxidation of the tailings (usually sulfide minerals like
pyrrhotite Pyrrhotite is an iron sulfide mineral with the formula Fe(1-x)S (x = 0 to 0.2). It is a nonstoichiometric variant of FeS, the mineral known as troilite. Pyrrhotite is also called magnetic pyrite, because the color is similar to pyrite and it is ...
). The limited oxygen diffusing into the layers causes the tailings oxidize for a longer period of time, for this reason the water at the impoundment is going to discharge water with high concentrations of iron and sulphate for at least the next 50 years. A study found that the Mount Keith Nickel Mine which is an
open pit mine Open-pit mining, also known as open-cast or open-cut mining and in larger contexts mega-mining, is a surface mining technique of extracting rock or minerals from the earth from an open-air pit, sometimes known as a borrow. This form of mining ...
in Western Australia is sequestering and storing large amounts of carbon dioxide through
enhanced weathering Enhanced weathering is a process that aims to accelerate the natural weathering by spreading finely ground silicate rock, such as basalt, onto surfaces which speeds up chemical reactions between rocks, water, and air. It also removes carbon dioxid ...
of mineral waste, this means that this mine is offsetting approximately 11% of the annual greenhouse gas emissions released by this mine.
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 ...
, copper as well as
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, pro ...
deposits became the most sought-after mineral exploration sites worldwide by private companies and national governments, when nickel prices more than doubled from 2017 to 2021. In the US, the only lucrative nickel mine in
Riddle, Oregon Riddle is a city in Douglas County, Oregon, United States. The population was 1,185 at the 2010 census. History Riddle was founded by John Bouseman Riddle, the son of William H. Riddle, for whom the town was named. William H. Riddle was a native ...
ceased operation in 1987 due to pollution concerns, but some sites are now actively re-explored as the federal government considers these deposits of strategic importance due to the increased domestic demand for
electric vehicle An electric vehicle (EV) is a vehicle that uses one or more electric motors for propulsion. It can be powered by a collector system, with electricity from extravehicular sources, or it can be powered autonomously by a battery (sometimes ch ...
s. In 2020, highly valuable nickel, copper and cobalt occurrences were discovered near
Tamarack ''Larix laricina'', commonly known as the tamarack, hackmatack, eastern larch, black larch, red larch, or American larch, is a species of larch native to Canada, from eastern Yukon and Inuvik, Northwest Territories east to Newfoundland, and al ...
,
Minnesota Minnesota () is a state in the upper midwestern region of the United States. It is the 12th largest U.S. state in area and the 22nd most populous, with over 5.75 million residents. Minnesota is home to western prairies, now given over to ...
. Environmental groups have expressed concerns over the potential pollution of the Kettle River headwaters, and the
Mississippi watershed The Mississippi River is the second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it fl ...
. The
Environmental Protection Agency A biophysical environment is a biotic and abiotic surrounding of an organism or population, and consequently includes the factors that have an influence in their survival, development, and evolution. A biophysical environment can vary in scale ...
considers hardrock mining the top polluting industry in the US, and there is a long history of toxic emission problems at such operations around the world. Exploratory drilling near Tamarack occurred in 2022.{{cite news , title=This Remote Mine Could Foretell the U.S. Electric Car Industry's Future , first=Ana , last=Swanson , date=30 August 2022 , newspaper=
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
, url=https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/30/business/economy/electric-cars-us-nickel-mine.html , access-date=30 August 2022


References

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