The mining and metallurgical group Eramet, led since 2017 by Christel Bories, is the leading French player in the global competition for metals. Very present in the nickel sector of New Caledonia, it also exploits this ore in Indonesia, manganese in Gabon and mineralized sands in Senegal. On July 3 in Argentina, he is due to inaugurate one of the world’s largest lithium production sites.
Can the New Caledonian nickel sector, in a critical situation before the current crisis, recover?
The situation is very critical and my thoughts go first to our employees who, like many Caledonians, are going through particularly difficult times. The sector is facing two very complicated structural problems to overcome, and which go beyond industrialists, such as Société Le Nickel. [SLN, détenue à 56 % par Eramet] : an extremely high price of electricity – around 200 dollars [soit 185 euros] the megawatt hour – for our electro-intensive industry, three times more than in Indonesia; the difficulty of having free access to the ore resource supplying our factories for political, social and societal reasons, even when we have all the permits. These two subjects must be dealt with within the framework of the “nickel pact” proposed by the French government, which has not been signed. It comes up against political and societal blockages.
And the export of raw ore is a third problem…
This is actually the third subject. Not all minerals mined are suitable for our factories. We obtained from the Caledonian government the right to export 4 million, then 6 million tonnes per year; Eramet has never been able to exceed 3 million and will be below 2 million in 2024, in particular because on mines intended for export [situées dans la province du Nord, dirigée par les indépendantistes]we are having difficulty obtaining operating permits.
The New Caledonian government unfortunately knows all of this. Eramet, which only generates a small part of its turnover in New Caledonia, cannot finance a company which has no prospect of returning to profitability. Otherwise, I would not respect the corporate interest of the group and my shareholders would be entitled to sue me. Today it is the French State which is providing money for the SLN to continue its activity.
In the immediate future, it must keep the ovens hot, and its employees have mobilized voluntarily, in a remarkable way, to save their work tools. Today, SLN teams are hard at work keeping the plant running, despite the ore supply difficulties. The future of New Caledonian nickel is a very complex subject.
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