The small club of global nickel miners was the top newsmaker during the week ended Feb. 2, 2007, with substantial developments at all three of the world’s leading producers.
Local 598 represents more than 1,000 active mine, mill and smelter workers, 1,500 retirees and over 600 surviving spouses at the Sudbury operations.
The agreement was ratified Friday night with 87% of the votes cast in favour of the deal, which provides an $8,000 signing bonus, wage increases of 60 per hour in the first year and 20 in each of the next two years, and increased pensions. As well, some 250 Local 598 members will move to Xstrata’s new Nickel Rim South mine starting in May 2008.
Many observers had expected a strike, since the Local’s last three bargaining rounds had all descended to strikes before an agreement was ever reached, and the CAW had strenuously opposed Xstrata’s takeover, preferring an ultimately failed “made in Canada” proposal to merge Inco and Falconbridge.
Hemi Mitic, assistant to CAW president Buzz Hargrove, was surprisingly complimentary of the new bosses, noting a “major difference in management’s attitude at the bargaining table in this round of contract talks.”
Gosh, Buzz, maybe this globalization stuff isn’t so bad after all!
At the top, Murilo Ferreira becomes president and CEO of CVRD Inco, replacing Scott Hand, who is retiring. Murilo remains a CVRD Executive committee member and is still responsible for the marketing and sales of copper and aluminum.
Other changes: Leonardo Moretzsohn, formerly CVRD’s director of the department of internal controls, is CVRD Inco’s new executive VP and CFO, replacing Bob Davies, who is leaving the company; Scott McDonald replaces Mark Daniel, who is retiring, as executive VP of human resources; Mark Cutifani, Peter Goudie, and Simon Fish will retain their current positions as executive VP and COO, executive VP of marketing & sales, and executive VP and general counsel, respectively; and Phil du Toit, the new executive VP of the Goro nickel project, will join the Management Committee.
CVRD, now the world’s second-largest miner after BHP Billiton, has given every indication it intends to boost nickel output by expanding capacity at existing mines and fast-tracking the development of new mines around the world.
Through their jointly owned holding company Interros, both men own a 27.4% interest in Norilsk, the world’s largest nickel miner, with each stake worth about US$7 billion. Their substantial interest in Polyus Gold, Russia’s largest gold miner, will also be sold and divided evenly.
Why now? It’s not clear, but there are rumours that the government is devising plans to have state diamond giant Alrosa buy Norilsk Nickel, effectively renationalizing the metals company, one of country’s last strategic assets not under the Kremlin’s control.
For years, Prokhorov had objected to any possible sale of this lucrative asset, but his hand was substantially weakened after his arrest in France last month on suspicion of participating in a prostitution ring.
Potanin, in contrast, is seen as being more willing to accommodate the Kremlin. Interestingly, the day before Prokhorov’s exit announcement, Potanin was in Paris accepting from the French Minister of Culture and Communications the award of “Officer in the Order of Arts and Letters” for his “cultural contributions” to France.
Never very active politically, Prokhorov will likely melt into relative obscurity in the manner of former Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich, who now lives in London after having been pressured to divest himself of his Russian assets.
Tuesday was punctuated by a phony press release posted to a Yahoo stock “bullboard” that said the Venezuelan government was on the verge of granting Crystallex a mining permit at its massive but long-delayed Las Cristinas gold project in Bolivar state. KRY jumped about 10% for a half hour before investors made it to the bottom of the gag release to read that Chavez was “leaning toward filling the mine with water and soaking his fat ass in it.”
Two days later, Crystallex president, CEO and director Todd Bruce was out the door, replaced by Gordon Thompson, who was a director from 2000 to 2002.
Bruce liked to blame the media for Crystallex’s troubles, so we can’t say we’re sorry he’s gone.
Late on Friday, Imperial tabled a C$1.70-per-share bid, topping Taseko’s $1.60-per-share offer and causing the latter to suspend its offer and revert to its previous $1.40 offer.
BcMetals’ management now recommends shareholders tender to Imperial’s bid.
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