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Australia's Queensland Nickel to shut for 11 days on low ore stocks

Published 29/02/2016, 03:54 pm
© Reuters.  Australia's Queensland Nickel to shut for 11 days on low ore stocks

MELBOURNE, Feb 29 (Reuters) - Australia's Queensland Nickel refinery (QNI), which went into voluntary administration in January, will shut down for around 11 days due to low metal ore stockpiles, administrator FTI Consulting told Reuters on Monday.

The nickel refinery, owned by independent politician and mining magnate Clive Palmer, needs an urgent cash infusion by April to avert closure, FTI consulting said last month.

"The (11-day) shutdown is due to low stockpiles," an FTI spokesman said, adding the refinery will be closed starting in the next day or so.

A prolonged slump in nickel prices CMNI3 , which hit their lowest since 2003 at $7,550 per tonne this month, has pushed QNI into financial difficulty. It entered voluntary administration on Jan. 18 after failing to get government support in December.

It has an annual capacity of 35,000 tonnes of nickel and is a big buyer of ore from New Caledonia. Given difficulties at QNI, ore shipments to Australia from New Caledonia in January-September fell more than half from a year ago.

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