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.