Nickel (Ni) is a lustrous, silvery-white metal that has relatively low electrical and thermal conductivities, has strength and toughness at elevated temperatures, is easily shaped into thin wires and flat sheets and is capable of being magnetised. More than 80% of nickel production is used in alloys. When alloyed with other elements, nickel imparts toughness, strength, resistance to corrosion and various electrical, magnetic and heat resistant properties. About 65% of world nickel output is consumed in the manufacture of stainless steel, which is used widely in the chemical industry, motor vehicles, the construction industry and in consumer products such as sinks, cooking utensils, cutlery and white-goods. Other uses of nickel include nickel-cadmium rechargeable batteries, some jewellery and medical applications, such as artificial hips and knees.

Some of the world's largest komatiite-hosted nickel sulphide and lateritic deposits occur in Australia, predominantly in Western Australia. In 2012, Australia was the largest holder of economic nickel resources in the world with approximately 25% of global resources.

Australia's nickel production is dominated by komatiite deposits (82%) that are associated with Archean (>2 500 million years old) greenstone sequences, whereas the majority of Australia's nickel resources are located in laterite deposits (69%). This is in contrast to the world situation where komatiite deposits (18%) provide the fourth largest contribution after flood basalts (30%), astrobleme (20%) and basal sulphide associations (20%).

Australian komatiite-hosted and layered mafic-ultramafic intrusion nickel deposits usually occur in Archean cratons or Proterozoic orogens and, therefore, are largely confined to the older crustal components of Western Australia, such as the Eastern Goldfields Province and the Yilgarn Craton, and of South Australia (Figure 3.18). Western Australia is the largest holder of nickel resources with about 90% of total Australian economic resources, followed by New South Wales with 5%, Queensland with 4% and Tasmania with less than 1% (Figure 3.19).

Most of Australia's nickel is produced from the mines at Mount Keith and Leinster, located north of Kalgoorlie in Western Australia. Australia was the fourth-largest nickel producer in 2012 behind the Philippines, Indonesia and Russia, accounting for 12.5% of estimated world mine production.

Figure 3.18 Australia's major nickel deposits based on total Identified Resources.
Source: Geoscience Australia.

Resources and Reserves

Figure 3.19 Percentages of Economic Demonstrated Resources and total resources of nickel held by the states and territories in Australia. Total resources comprise all Demonstrated and Inferred Resources. Numbers are rounded so might not add up to 100% exactly.
Source: Geoscience Australia.

World Ranking

Trends

The EDR for nickel increased during the period 1995 to 2001 by 18.2 Mt (Figure 3.20). This resulted mainly because of progressive increases in resources of lateritic deposits at Bulong, Cawse, Murrin Murrin, Mount Margaret, Ravensthorpe, all in Western Australia, as well as Marlborough in Queensland and Syerston and Young in New South Wales. Between 1999 and 2000, Australia's EDR of nickel doubled (Figure 3.20). This dramatic increase was a result of further large increases in resources at the Mount Margaret and Ravensthorpe deposits, and other lateritic deposits in the Kalgoorlie region of Western Australia. In addition, during the period 1995 to 2001 there were increases in resources of Western Australian sulphide deposits at Yakabindie, and the high-grade discoveries at Silver Swan and Cosmos.

From 2001 onwards, sharp rises in market prices for nickel led to increased expenditure on exploration and on evaluation drilling at many known deposits. This contributed to further increases in total EDR for sulphide deposits at Perseverance, Savannah, Maggie Hays, Anomaly 1, Honeymoon Well deposits in the Forrestania area, as well as new deposits at Prospero and Tapinos in Western Australia, Avebury in Tasmania and remnant resources at several sulphide deposits in the Western Australia's Kambalda region, including Otter-Juan and Lanfranchi groups of deposits.

However, the EDR increased at a slower rate from 2001 onwards (Figure 3.20) because of the absence of further discoveries of lateritic nickel deposits and as a result of increases in resources for some deposits being offset by companies reclassifying their lateritic nickel resources to lower resource categories pending more detailed drilling and resource assessments. Decreases in nickel EDR from 2009 onwards (Figure 3.20) reflect reclassification of nickel resources in response to the very sharp falls in nickel prices following the 2008-09 global financial crisis followed by only a partial recovery in nickel prices from 2009 onwards.

Figure 3.20 Trends in Economic Demonstrated Resources for nickel since 1975.
Source: Geoscience Australia.

Resource to Production Ratio