ABSTRACT

Canada is the world's largest producer of nickel; the United States is the world's largest consumer of nickel. Moreover, one Canadian producer, Inco Limited, which controls the world's highest-quality nickel deposits, has long been the dominant firm in the industry. As of 1950 there were only two other nickel producers: Falconbridge Nickel Mines Limited, which controlled a small portion of the Sudbury ore body, and Society Le Nickel, which operated in the French South Pacific colony of New Caledonia. The costs of production from laterites generally exceed those of most sulfide mines, as evidenced by the fact that, while no lateritic nickel mine made a profit in the 1976-78 slump, sulfide mines in Sudbury and Kambalda, Western Australia, were profitable. The most important nickel alloy is stainless steel, which is an iron-chromium-nickel alloy containing 6-22 percent nickel. Though its US subsidiary, Inco has been subject to continual attention by anti-trust investigators because of its large share of the nickel market.