NICKEL
BY C. S. CORBETT
USES OF NICKEL
Nickel is used chiefly in the manufacture of special steels. It is
estimated[65] that about 60 per cent. of the entire nickel production
goes into steel making in normal times and more under war conditions.
Nickel steels are the most important of all the alloy steels and are
the most used.[66] They are used where unusual tensile strength is
required. Nickel-chromium steels are used in the manufacture of armor
plate.
[65] Report of the Royal Ontario Nickel Commission, 1917, p. 300.
[66] STOUGHTON, BRADLEY: “The Metallurgy of Iron and Steel,” 1911.
Ordinary nickel steels commonly carry about 3¹⁄₂ per cent. nickel.
“Highly nickeliferous steels carrying up to 40 per cent. nickel are
used for special purposes where non-magnetic qualities, resistance to
corrosion and, above all, no expansion or contraction, or any desired
expansion or contraction, with change of temperature, is important.”[67]
[67] Report of Royal Ontario Nickel Commission, 1917, p. 301.
Non-ferrous nickel alloys have found extensive uses, and probably
about 20 per cent. of the world’s production of nickel goes into them.
By far the most important are those formed from nickel and copper.
One, generally known as “cupro-nickel,” contains approximately 80 per
cent. copper and 20 per cent. nickel and is used largely for bullet
jackets and other munition purposes. Another, which has become well
known under the trade name “Monel metal,” contains 29 per cent. copper,
67 per cent. nickel, about 2.5 per cent. iron, and a small amount of
manganese. It is manufactured direct from the Sudbury matte. Monel
metal is used chiefly where a strong non-corroding metal is needed, as,
notably, in ship propellers.
It is estimated that about 2 per cent. of the nickel production is
used for electro-plating. To a large extent nickel plating prevents
corrosion of the metal plated.
Nickel is also used for storage batteries; for coinage; as a catalyser
in the hardening of oils or fats (solid fats being used for soap
making); for cooking utensils; and as a pigment for coloring ceramic
ware. It is doubtful whether these last-named uses would take more than
3 per cent. of the world’s nickel production.
Copper gives to steel properties somewhat similar to those given by
nickel, notably increasing the tensile strength. Silicon also imparts
similar properties to steel, increasing especially the toughness and
tensile strength. A considerable proportion of chromium makes steel
highly non-corroding. There is, however, nothing known that will take
the place of nickel in special steels having a zero or a predetermined
coefficient of expansion, such as “invar” or “platinite.”
Nickel possesses extraordinary power in giving its white color to
alloys of copper; hence its use in coinage. The other white metals
that might be used in its place are less plentiful and more expensive.
There is no other abundant metal or alloy having the good color, great
strength and resistance to corrosion possessed by Monel metal and like
alloys of nickel and copper.
Nickel salts are used as substitutes for metals of the platinum group
as catalysts in hardening oils and fats.
CHANGES IN PRACTICE
Production of nickel on a fairly large scale did not begin until the
mines of New Caledonia were opened in 1875. To handle these ores,
smelters and refineries were built in England and continental Europe.
As the ores are of the silicate type and free from copper, they were
easily treated by common processes of smelting with fluxes to get
rid of the gangue and then heating with charcoal for reduction to a
metallic condition. A pure metal was obtained which found a good market.
Production of nickel-copper ores in the Sudbury district began in 1887.
On account of the copper with the nickel in these ores, new processes
of refining had to be worked out and the trade prejudice against the
product had to be overcome. This took persistent effort for several
years. Only one of the first companies to operate in the Sudbury
district has survived to the present time. This is the Canadian Copper
Co., the producing subsidiary of the International Nickel Co.
Three new refining processes have been developed to handle
nickel-copper ores. The Orford Copper Co. (subsidiary of the
International company) uses the salt cake process. This process is one
of fusion with sodium sulphide, the copper sulphide concentrating on
top and the nickel sulphides at the bottom of the melt. Repeated fusion
of the “tops” and “bottoms” effects a good separation.
The Mond company had a process before it had any mines. This process
depends upon volatilization of the nickel by passing carbon monoxide
over the matte, which has been previously roasted and leached of its
copper content. Nickel carbonyl, Ni(CO)₄, is formed and metallic nickel
is thrown down by decomposition of this product, so that the nickel
obtained is pure.
The Hybinette process, a process depending on electrolysis, was first
worked out at the plant of the Orford Copper Co. on Sudbury matte.
It was used for low-grade ores at Fredericktown, Mo., and then later
for the Norwegian ores at Kristiansand. It is to be used in the new
refinery of the British-American Co. in Ontario.
Monel metal is made directly from Sudbury matte with the removal of a
little of the copper. It is known as a natural alloy, in contrast to
one made by combining the pure metals.
Increased use of nickeliferous iron ore for steel making will decrease
the amount of nickel that will have to be added in making such steel.
This will probably be overbalanced by the increased use of such steels.
GEOLOGICAL DISTRIBUTION
Analyses of igneous rocks indicate that nickel is present in the
average igneous rock to the extent of 0.020[68] per cent. Of its
occurrence, Clarke says:[69] “Very frequently detected in igneous
rocks, probably as a constituent of olivine. * * * The presence of
nickel is especially characteristic of magnesian igneous rocks, and
it is generally associated in them with chromium.” Regarding copper
he says: “Minute traces of this metal are often detected in igneous
rocks, although they are rarely determined quantitatively.” It is
estimated[70] that copper is present in the average igneous rock to
the proportion of about 0.010 per cent., or only about half that of
nickel, and that zinc and lead are present in even smaller proportion.
Notwithstanding this greater abundance of nickel, the workable deposits
of copper, lead, and zinc are much more widespread and production
is correspondingly greater. “It can thus be said that nickel is
less amenable to concentration by the agencies that tend to produce
workable deposits than are the other metals mentioned (copper, lead and
zinc).”[71]
[68] F. W. CLARKE, “The Data of Geochemistry,” _Bull. 616_, U. S.
Geological Survey, 1916, p. 27.
[69] _Ibid._, p. 18.
[70] Report of Royal Ontario Nickel Commission, 1917, p. 95.
[71] _Ibid._
One would infer from the above that nickel deposits of consequence
would most likely occur in connection with igneous rocks, especially
those that are basic. This is indeed true; in fact, the only known
nickel deposits of commercial or prospective commercial value occur in
association with basic igneous rocks. The nickeliferous metallographic
provinces of the world may be said to lie within petrographic
provinces. Harker says:[72] “An examination of the rocks belonging to
one great period of igneous activity, and of their actual distribution,
enables us to distinguish areas of greater or less extent, within which
the rocks present a less or greater degree of consanguinity, the law
being that more marked specialization goes with narrower localization.”
On the basis of this law and the fact noted by Clarke and mentioned
above, nickeliferous metallographic provinces may be limited more
closely than simply to areas of basic igneous rocks. They may be said
to roughly coincide with areas of basic igneous rock characterized by
minerals of the olivine group, these minerals having formed as a result
of the high magnesium content of the rock magma.
[72] HARKER, ALFRED, “The Natural History of Igneous Rocks,” 1909, p.
89.
Nickel ores occur where there was an unusual segregation of the element
in the igneous rock at the time of solidification. In some places
further concentration by weathering has been necessary to make an ore
of the rock. In still other places, the concentration by weathering
has not been sufficient to make the nickel valuable in itself, but has
raised the iron content of the rock, and with it the nickel content, to
such an extent as to make the ore valuable in the first instance as an
iron ore and of additional value because of its nickel content.
Nickel is unique among the less rare metals in that a single district
contains a quantity of accessible, workable ore, far ahead of that in
all other known deposits of the world combined. This is the Sudbury
district of Ontario. The nickel ores there were segregated from an
enormous mass of igneous rock intruded under conditions favorable for
broad segregation and subsequently so eroded that large ore bodies are
accessible.
In those nickel ores and nickeliferous iron ores where weathering
has been a necessary agent in concentrating the nickel and iron
enough to make them commercially valuable, the original deposits were
nickeliferous igneous rocks--that is, they were similar to the rocks
associated with the nickel deposits of the sulphide type, but contained
much less nickel. The nickel-ore deposits of the New Caledonia region,
which rank next in productiveness to those of the Sudbury district, are
of this type. The Cuban nickeliferous iron ores best exemplify iron ore
deposits of this type.
GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION
The nickeliferous ore deposits of the world may be divided into two
main types--the sulphide type, in which weathering has not been of
prime importance, and the garnierite or lateritic type, in which
weathering has altered and concentrated the nickel as well as the
chromium and iron of the original rock. In addition, nickel occurs
in some places with ores of precious and semi-precious metals in
veins. Nickel may be recovered from such ores as a by-product, but the
ores are never mined primarily for their nickel content. The brief
descriptions of the known deposits, grouped according to type, which
follow, have been taken from the descriptions of the world’s nickel
deposits in the report of the Royal Ontario Nickel Commission. A few
direct quotations from the text of the report are given.
=Deposits of the Sulphide Type.=--The Sudbury district is situated
in southeastern Ontario, _Canada_. In its broader outlines the
geology of this district is relatively simple. An immense mass of
nickeliferous rock was intruded as a “laccolithic sheet” or sill along
an unconformable plane of contact between flat-lying sediments and an
underlying complex of ancient rocks. During the intrusion and cooling,
or perhaps soon thereafter, the underlying rocks of the central part
of the laccolith, covering the reservoirs from which the magma came,
subsided. Long periods of erosion then planed down the region until
all that is left of the sill occupies a synclinal basin nearly 40
miles long and 10 to 15 miles wide. All of the rocks involved are of
pre-Cambrian age.
The laccolithic sheet is approximately 10,000 feet thick. It
differentiated on cooling into two kinds of rock--micropegmatite, a
rock of the granite group, now forming the upper part of the sill, and
norite, a gabbro rock, the lower part. The gradation between these two
rocks is rather abrupt. At the bottom of the sill, in some places lying
between the norite and the underlying rock and at other places entirely
within the underlying rock, are bodies of ore consisting of pyrrhotite,
pentlandite and chalcopyrite. These are segregated products of the
norite, which in some places solidified at the base of the sill and in
others were intruded as dikes in the underlying rocks or in previously
solidified portions of the norite. They constitute commercial ore
bodies where the sulphides form a preponderant part of the rock.
The ore bodies are classified as “marginal” and “offset.” The marginal
deposits occur along the contact of the norite with the underlying
rock. Frequently they lie entirely within the rocks adjacent to the
norite. The offset deposits occur where faults cut across the limbs
of the fold, forming zones of weakness into which ore or mineralized
norite was intruded.
The nickel-bearing mineral is pentlandite; the copper-bearing,
chalcopyrite. The other sulphide, pyrrhotite, is a sulphide of iron.
The ores mined to date average roughly 3.5 per cent. nickel and 2 per
cent. copper.
From the opening of the district in 1887 to the end of 1916 nearly ten
and one-half million tons of Sudbury ore had been mined and smelted;
and, from this, about 285,000 tons of nickel had been produced. It
is estimated that there are probably fully 100,000,000 tons of ore
reserves. Over a million and a half tons of ore were mined and smelted
in 1916.
The Alexo Mine is situated 150 miles due north of Sudbury. The ore
occurs at the contact of a large mass of peridotite (now altered to
serpentine), with a pillow-lava which the peridotite intruded. The
ore consists of sulphide minerals segregated from the intrusive mass.
It is of two types, one, a massive, pure sulphide occupying cracks
in dike-like relationship, the other, disseminated sulphide in
peridotite adjacent to the sulphide ore masses. The ore deposit has a
proven length of 700 feet, has been opened to a depth of 120 feet, and
drilling has shown ore to extend to a depth of 240 feet. The average
width may be taken as approximately 10 feet. By the end of 1916, ore
had been raised to the extent of 34,650 tons and more than that amount
had been developed. About 12,000 tons of ore were shipped in 1915,
averaging about 4.9 per cent. nickel and 0.6 per cent. copper. Several
hundred thousand tons are probably available in this deposit.
The nickel ore deposits of _Norway_ are similar mineralogically to
those of Sudbury. The deposits are small, their metal content is low,
and compared to the Sudbury and New Caledonia deposits they are of
little consequence. Up to 1909 there had been mined and smelted in
Norway about 400,000 tons of nickel ore. The hand-sorted ore carried
1.4 to 1.7 per cent. of nickel.
Deposits like those of Norway have been found in _Sweden_, but
they have not been worked in recent years. There is evidently a
nickeliferous metallographic province in the Scandinavian countries and
important ore deposits may yet be found there.
In the _United States_, near Gap, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania,
is a deposit of nickel ore of the sulphide type, which occurs as
a segregation from a 300-ft. dike of amphibolite. It was worked
spasmodically for copper throughout the 18th century. Nickel was
discovered in the ore in 1852 and 4,000,000 pounds of nickel are
estimated to have been produced up to 1882. The advent of New Caledonia
and Sudbury ores caused the closing of the mine. The ore as mined
carried 1 to 3 per cent. nickel and about one-third as much copper.
Near Julian, San Diego County, California, is a sulphide nickel deposit
that has never been commercially productive. Assays show the ore to
contain nearly 3 per cent. nickel or more.
A small deposit in _Tasmania_ has produced a few thousand tons of rich
ore. Diamond drilling has shown that little ore remains.
Nickel-copper sulphides have been found in connection with a large
intrusive of basic igneous rock in the Insizwa Range, _South Africa_.
No payable ore has been found.
Nickel sulphide deposits of unknown importance occur in _India_ and in
_Southwestern China_. Small deposits which were worked when nickel was
scarce occur in _Italy_, _Scotland_, _Germany_ and _Austria_.
=Deposits of the Garnierite and Lateritic Types.=--About one-third of
the surface of the island of _New Caledonia_ is occupied by serpentine,
this being the weathered product of basic igneous rock. “The ore,
noumeaite or garnierite, occurs as a hydrated silicate of nickel and
magnesia and may best be described as an alteration product of the
serpentine in which the magnesia and iron have been replaced by nickel.
* * * The workable deposits always occur on the saddle of spurs from
the main mountain ridge, at elevations of 400 to 2,500 feet, the
latter elevation being the more common. * * * The replacement of the
serpentine by nickel follows the joints and fractures in the serpentine
and the undecomposed blocks and boulders of serpentine are as a rule
covered by a shell of ore which has to be picked off.” The ores are
hand picked to bring them up to a grade profitable to treat. In the
past it has not been considered economical to smelt ore of lower grade
than 4.5 per cent. nickel nor to ship ore much below 6.5 per cent.
The ore bodies usually contain under 250,000 tons of ore. The largest
mine yet worked produced less than 600,000 metric tons (2,204 lb.) of
ore. Probably there still remains as much undeveloped ore as has been
mined in the forty years of production,--equivalent to 160,000 tons of
nickel. This would be equal to about four years’ output of the Sudbury
district at the 1916 rate of production. “There are large bodies of
lower-grade ores which it has not yet been found feasible to treat.”
Three large blanket deposits of nickeliferous iron ore occur on
elevated plateaus in _Cuba_. These are typical lateritic (residual)
deposits. The average depth of the ore is 15 feet and the combined
tonnage of the three deposits is placed at one and one-half to three
billion tons. The nickel content ranges from about 0.6 per cent. to
2.1 per cent. and shows progressive enrichment from the top downward.
Chromium is also present and shows similar enrichment. The presence of
nickel and chromium in the iron ores greatly enhances their value for
making special steels.
Iron ore on the island of Seboekoe, lying off the southeast coast of
_Borneo_, contains appreciable amounts of nickel and chromium. At least
300,000,000 tons of ore are contained in the deposit, which is a porous
limonite, about 15 feet thick, overlying serpentine.
In the _United States_, nickel deposits of the garnierite type occur in
_North Carolina_ and _Oregon_. Attempts to mine these ores have never
been successful.
Small nickel deposits of the garnierite type occur in _Egypt_,
_Germany_ (Prussian Silesia), _Greece_, _Madagascar_, _Russia_ and
_Spain_. Nickeliferous iron ores occur in Greece, and it is thought
that chromiferous iron ores on Mindao Island, in the _Philippines_,
may, on further exploration, prove to be nickeliferous.
=Nickel in Veins.=--Nickel occurs with other metals, precious or
semi-precious, in some vein deposits and is recovered as a by-product
in the treatment of ores from them. It is notably present in the
deposits at Cobalt, Ontario, and has been found in vein deposits in
the United States, France, Germany, Austria, Mexico and South America.
Several hundred tons are recovered annually in the refining of copper
produced in the United States.
Related to the vein deposit type of nickel-bearing ore are the galena
deposits disseminated through dolomite in southeastern Missouri. Iron,
copper, nickel, and cobalt sulphides occur with the galena. Years ago
nickel was recovered electrolytically from matte from these ores.
DEVELOPMENTS AND CHANGES IN KNOWN GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION
In 1900 New Caledonia supplied 65 per cent. of the world’s production
and Ontario 35 per cent. Since then the world’s production has
increased six-fold, and Ontario, by the end of 1916, was producing 80
per cent. of the whole. This shows the trend of the industry. Recent
discoveries of ore in the Sudbury district and construction of new
smelters and refineries in Ontario to treat the ores indicate an
increasing dominance of the industry by that district. New Caledonia
has not the large ore bodies and is too far away to compete favorably
with Ontario, though work will continue there.
[Illustration: FIG. 7.--Refined nickel produced from the ores of New
Caledonia and Ontario, for five-year periods; the amounts are for the
calendar year indicated.]
Statistics of production and ore reserves in Ontario and New Caledonia
are shown graphically in figures 7 and 8.
Isolated nickel ore bodies of the sulphide type--that is, segregations
from basic igneous rocks, as at Sudbury--have been found in a number of
widely separated places. There is a distinct probability that others
exist and may be discovered. Such undiscovered deposits might even
contain more accessible ore, in the aggregate, than the total of the
mined and unmined ores of the Sudbury district, but in the light of
present knowledge this seems a remote possibility.
Other deposits of the New Caledonian and Cuban types will probably be
discovered, but it is doubtful if as large deposits of those types
remain to be found. In these the nickel has remained in the material
left as residuum from the partial or complete weathering by solution of
the original nickeliferous rock. This material lies at the surface and
covers relatively broad areas. Bodies of it are therefore not usually
difficult of discovery. They seem to be found most abundantly in warm
latitudes, where solution weathering has most easily gone on under
conditions favorable for preservation of the residuum.
[Illustration: FIG. 8.--Nickel production, and nickel content of
reserves, in Ontario, New Caledonia, and Norway.]
The present known nickel and nickeliferous iron-ore deposits indicate
roughly the locations of perhaps all or nearly all of the nickeliferous
metallographic provinces of the world. It is in these provinces that
new deposits are most likely to be found. The wide-spread distribution
of these provinces is indicated by the following statement in the
Report of the Ontario Nickel Commission:
While competition is not to be feared (that is, for Ontario), it
would be futile to try to shut off the supply of nickel from almost
any of the great nations. * * * Nearly every important country has
supplies of nickel ore which can be worked if the demand is great,
thus ensuring a high price.
It is thought probable that the nickeliferous metallographic province
of eastern Canada, which includes the Sudbury district, contains the
greatest unknown nickel deposits, just as it contains the greatest
known one, and this for three reasons. The first and most obvious
reason is that the great nickel-ore bodies of the Sudbury district,
the isolated Alexo ore body, 150 miles north of the district, and the
appreciable content of nickel in the veins of the Cobalt and other
districts near by, indicate an unusually large nickel content in the
original magma from which the basic igneous rocks were derived. The
second reason is that the mantle of glacial drift effectively conceals
large areas of underlying rock and prevents easy discovery. The third
is that the wild and unsettled nature of the country inhibits the human
activities whereby accidental or other discoveries would be made.
POLITICAL CONTROL
The Sudbury nickel deposits and the Alexo ore body in eastern Ontario
are under the political control of the British Empire; the New
Caledonian nickel deposits are controlled politically by France, New
Caledonia being a French colony; and the nickel deposits of Norway and
Cuba are under the political control of those governments. The other
deposits of the world, as has been noted, are commercially unimportant.
COMMERCIAL CONTROL
Ownership of mines and undeveloped ore bodies in the Sudbury district
is divided between British and American interests. There are two
companies producing ore at the present time and a third is expected to
begin producing soon.
The first large company in the field was the Canadian Copper Co. This
is a subsidiary of the International Nickel Co., over 90 per cent. of
the stock of which is held in the United States. The Canadian Copper
Co. owns the following mines: Copper Cliff, Evans, Stobie, Crean Hill,
Vermilion, Creighton, No. 1, No. 2, No. 3, No. 4, No. 5, and No. 6.
Four of these were being worked in 1917--the Crean Hill, Vermilion,
Creighton and No. 2. In December, 1916, the president of the Canadian
Copper Co. gave the following estimates of reserves of payable ore in
three properties of that company: 10,000,000 tons in the Creighton;
2,000,000 tons in Crean Hill; and 45,000,000 tons in No. 3.
The Mond Nickel Co. is controlled by British interests. It owns the
following mines: Garson, Worthington, Levack, Victoria and Kirkwood.
The Levack has proven reserves of good ore amounting to 4,500,000 tons.
The reserves of the other mines are not given.
The British-America Nickel Corporation, Ltd., has $20,000,000 of common
stock, of which $14,500,000 is held by the British government in the
name of Alan Anderson, trustee. By the end of 1916, this company had
11,000,000 tons of workable ore blocked out. Its mines are the Murray,
Gertrude, Elsie, Blue Lake and Frood Extension. The reserves of the
Murray alone are put at 9,000,000 tons.
In the southeastern part of the district an ore body 7,500 feet long,
10 to 120 feet thick, and extending to a depth of 1,020 feet in one
place at least, has been found recently in diamond drilling operations
by the E. J. Longyear Co., of Minneapolis. This company and its
associates, all American, control the ore body. The ore tonnage of
this deposit is estimated at 6,000,000 tons above the 500-ft. level. A
few drill holes have gone to greater depths and found ore. It is not
possible to estimate the reserves of this deposit below the 500-ft.
depth.
The Alexo Mining Co. Ltd., which is mining the Alexo ore deposit north
of the Sudbury district, is a Canadian concern. An estimate of the
quantity of ore in this deposit is not available, but the deposit
is small compared to that of the Sudbury district. The total may be
several hundred thousand tons.
The largest and most important owners of nickel-holding lands in _New
Caledonia_, in relative order of the importance of their holdings,
are: (1) La Société le Nickel, a company which has been mining in the
island for many years. (2) The International Nickel Co., represented
in New Caledonia by its two subsidiary companies, The Nickel
Corporation and La Société Minière Caledonienne. The International
does not mine in the island, but some of its lands are worked on
lease by persons associated with La Société le Nickel. (3) Les
Hauts-Fourneaux de Noumea.[73]
[73] Report of Ontario Nickel Commission, 1917, p. 253.
La Société le Nickel was under control of the Rothschilds of France at
the time of the discovery of the Sudbury deposits. Mr. F. E. Merry, an
English metallurgist, in testifying to the Ontario Nickel Commission,
reported that Germans were in control of the company at the outbreak
of the war. The German firm of Krupp had also acquired some nickel
property in New Caledonia.
The International Nickel Co., the second largest holder of New
Caledonian nickel lands, is the same American firm which owns the
Canadian Copper Co.
Les Hauts-Fourneaux de Noumea is owned, at least since the outbreak of
the war, by French interests.
According to Mr. Merry, the nickel mines and smelters of _Norway_ were
also mainly in control of the same German group that had gotten control
of Le Nickel. It worked under the name “Metallgesellschaft.” One mine
and smelter reopened recently were under English control.
The nickeliferous iron ores of _Cuba_ are owned entirely by American
companies, principally by steel manufacturing companies, notably the
Bethlehem Steel Co.
All three companies producing or about to produce nickel in the Sudbury
district own their own smelting and refining plants. The International
has been smelting its ore in Canada and refining it in the United
States. It has a new refinery at Port Colborne, Ontario. The Mond
Nickel Co. which smelts in Canada and refines in England, has started a
refinery in Canada. The British-American Nickel Corporation has built
both a smelter and a refinery in Canada.
The United States Nickel Co. operates a refinery at New Brunswick, New
Jersey. Les Hauts-Fourneaux de Noumea and this company belong to the
same interests. They have a smelter at Noumea, New Caledonia; also a
refinery at Havre, France.
La Société le Nickel has a smelter at Thio, New Caledonia, and
refineries at Havre, France, and Erdington and Kirkintilloch, British
Isles.
No one refining process dominates the nickel industry of the world. The
two companies producing nickel from Sudbury ores are using entirely
different refining processes, which they individually control; and
the British-America concern, soon to begin producing, will use a
third process, the Hybinette, an electrolytic process on which it has
exclusive rights for North America. The Orford Copper Co., subsidiary
of the International, uses what is known as the “salt-cake” process,
but it also produces some nickel electrolytically.
The process of the United States Nickel Co. at New Brunswick, New
Jersey, being one of fluxing and reducing from matte produced at the
Noumea smelter, is not adaptable to copper-bearing sulphide ores.
The ores produced in Norway are smelted and refined in Norway by the
Hybinette process.
Obviously the nickel resources of the world are controlled by a few
companies. The chief one is the International Nickel Co., which has
the largest holdings at Sudbury, and the second largest holdings in
New Caledonia. The Mond and the British-America are the next most
important, and La Société le Nickel is fourth in importance. E. J.
Longyear Co. and associates do not aspire to become producers of nickel
and are in the market to sell their properties. For a new concern to
succeed it would have to develop a refining process of its own. The
alternative would be for it to sell out to or merge itself with a firm
that controls a refining process. There are no custom smelters or
refineries in America. The Mond company buys the Alexo ore because its
high magnesium content makes it a good fluxing material in smelting
Sudbury ores.
POSITION OF THE LEADING COMMERCIAL NATIONS
=United States.=--Though the United States has insignificant deposits
of nickel ore and therefore exerts little or no political control over
nickel mining, American capital plays an important if not the leading
rôle in the industry. Of the four companies holding the deposits of
the Sudbury district two are American, and these two possess what are
doubtless the largest reserves there. One of these, the International
Nickel Co., has the next to the largest holdings in New Caledonia.
=Great Britain.=--Of all nations Great Britain is in the strongest
position politically with respect to the nickel industry, because of
the Sudbury district being in Canada. It has used this control in an
endeavor to localize the business of refining Ontario nickel ores
in Canada, with the result that the International Nickel Co. is to
transfer its refining operations from New Jersey to its new refinery in
Ontario.
Commercially, British capital controls the two other companies having
holdings at Sudbury. In one of these,--the British-America Nickel
Corporation,--the government itself has a controlling interest.
The policy of the British government with relation to the Sudbury
nickel ores, which give the British an overwhelmingly dominant
political control over the world’s nickel, is highly significant as
showing that the government is aware of the necessity for commercial
as well as political control, in order to reap all the commercial and
strategic advantages of its good fortune. During the war, and before
the United States entered, great feeling was roused in Canada and
England by the German submarine, _Deutschland_, loading at New York a
cargo that consisted partly of metallic nickel, it being assumed that
this was originally Canadian nickel. The direct participation of the
British government in the Sudbury industry in such a way as to make the
government practically the dominant factor, and the transfer of the
refinery operations of the American-owned International Nickel Co. from
New Jersey to Ontario, mark a vigorous and aggressive nationalistic
policy which has attained its object without much delay.
=France.=--France owns the island of New Caledonia and has political
control of the nickel deposits there. Two of the three principal
companies holding New Caledonian ore deposits are presumably held by
French interests. The larger one, La Société le Nickel, was for a long
time controlled by the Rothschilds of France. It was reported later to
have gotten into German hands.
=Germany.=--Germany exercises political control over no important
nickel deposits. Before the war the German firm of Krupp had
obtained some New Caledonian nickel properties. A German group, the
Metallgesellschaft, is reported to have had control of La Société le
Nickel at the outbreak of the war, and also the mines and smelters of
Norway.