European Nickel is an "emerging mid-tier nickel laterite producer".With over 1 million tonnes of nickel resources and assets in Turkey, the Philippines and Albania, European Nickel is targeting 50,000 tonnes of annual nickel production within five years. European Nickel saw a massive price spike last week after announcing two pieces of very good news:
- It has received approval of its forestry permit for the Caldag site (it wants to clear 100,000 trees so it can build a processing plant). The Caldag project in Turkey is the Company's flagship asset with near-term production and will be the world's first commercial scale nickel laterite heap leach operation
- It has signed a $350 million debt facility with two Chinese partners to fund its Caldag mine in Turkey, enabling the project to be funded through to production... As with other base metal mining companies, traditional areas of finance have virtually dried up over the past year so this is a very helpful development.
- The partners are state-owned Jiangxi Rare Earth and Rare Metals Tungsten Group Co Ltd (JXTC), which will acquire a 20 percent stake in the Caldag project for $20 million and buy 50 percent of the mine's nickel production, and Tianchen Engineering Corporation (TCC).
- According to Ambrian,
"JXTC and TCC represent major industry players which are committed to developing this project, and, as demonstrated by the raft of Chinese funding into Australian mining assets, China is clearly still a buyer when it comes to international metal projects"
Seems to have very positive momentum. Comments?
