As we near the end of a year in which most of the news about mining in Thompson has been negative, mainly in the form of layoffs due to the permanent closure of the smelter and refinery, it was probably a relief for members of the Thompson Chamber of Commerce to hear about signs of hope from Vale’s North Atlantic mining operations director Alistair Ross when he was in town for the Manitoba Operations open house Oct. 3.
Ross feels that if things go the way that many pundits are predicting, electric vehicle batteries will result in an increase in the price of nickel, particularly nickel of the quality that Thompson’s mines are known for. If that happens, the company’s board might be convinced to invest more in Thompson’s mines, which could possibly even mean a slight uptick in local mining jobs sometime down the line.
As corporate and Indigenous affairs director for Manitoba and Ontario Ryan Land cautioned at the outset of Ross’s speech to the chamber, however, there are a lot of ifs involved in this scenario, one of them being Vale Manitoba Operations establishing a stable price for getting ore out of the ground over the next few years. What happens if they don’t? Rossdidn’t say explicitly, but at the very least it would mean that no money to develop new ore bodies would be forthcoming.
Nothing is going to bring the smelter and refinery – or the jobs that they provided – back to Thompson. That ship has sailed. Is it possible that someday a battery manufacturer might want to set up shop close to the source of the nickel that they need for their batteries, at least how the technology stands now? It is, according to Ross. But at any rate, the remarks he delivered to the chamber should have at least alleviated what many, unreasonably or not, have been fearing since the news of the smelter and refinery shutdown first surfaced about eight years ago: that the company might want to shut down its mining operations in Thompson altogether.
Whether any of what Ross said will pan out as he unfolded can’t be known until it either happens or doesn’t. But it is nice to know that there is at least a scenario in which Thompson mining doesn’t remain a dwindling industry for years to come until there is almost nothing or perhaps even nothing of it left. Unfortunately, as Ross himself admitted, Vale has sometimes been too slow to take action without the assurances provided by a lot of study to guarantee success beforehand.
