NICKEL PRODUCTION

Wairarapa Times-Age, 7 November 1940, Page 3

NICKEL PRODUCTION

GREATEST IN CANADA'S HISTORY OTTAWA. Canada's production of nickel in 1939 was the greatest in the history of the industry, amounting to 226.105,i 865 pounds compared with 210,572,738 pounds in 1938. The previous record year was 1937, when the output totalled 224,905.046 pounds. Almost the entire 1939 production originated in the nickel-copper ores of the Sudbury district. Ontario, and represented the recovery of the metal in the refined state, in oxides and salts, and in matte exported. In addition to the nickel obtained from these ores, a relatively small quantity .of the metal is recovered annually in the treatment of silver-cobalt ores from the Cobalt district of Northern Ontario. Copper recovered in 1939 from nickel-copper ores totalled 328,144,517 pounds, or 53.9 per cent of the total quantity of new ! copper produced- from all sources in the Dominion during the year. The , nickel-bearing deposits of the Sud- I bury area also contain relatively high I values in platinum metals which are I recovered in refining operations. In addition to production of nickel. I copper and the platinum metals, there is an important recovery from these ores of the associated metals —silver, gold, selenium and tellurium. Sulphur for the manufacture of sulphuric acid is salvaged in the gaseous state from waste smelter gases. Silver recovered by this industry in 1939 amounted to 2,496,632 fine ounces, while the production of gold from the nickel-bear-ing ores during the same period totalled 77.094 fine ounces. In 1926 the corresponding production of gold from these same ores was only 4.447 fine I ounces.