Vale Temporarily Closes Furnace at Ontario Smelter

Vale S. A. has announced that furnace #2 at its Copper Cliff smelter in Sudbury, Ontario, will be closed for a minimum of 16 weeks.

According to a Vale announcement, the furnace closure is expected to reduce output by 15,000 metric tons of finished nickel, which represents 5 percent of the Vale’s total nickel production planned for 2011.

One press report notes that the closure occurred in early February 2011 after molten nickel leaked from a furnace, causing an explosion at the smelter.

Vale, headquartered in Brazil, is the second largest mining group in the world. The company reportedly produced 114,000 metric tons of nickel over the first nine months of last year.