I have been a little concerned about the projections of the world nickel market by the time we come to production in 2015/2016, but after doing some research I am much more comfortable with the outlook.

Noront's ppt March presentation on their website, goes into some detail on slides 28 /29 regarding world laterite and sulphide deposits. Laterite deposits tend to be large low grade (1%N) open pit mines and tend to have higher operating costs due to the more complex process of liberating the nickel. I think Noront's point is that a projected nickel oversupply market in the coming years, is questionable as laterite projects are stumbling and sulpide nickel mines, as we have in Canada and with Noront, will have an advantage, as well as being able to withstand the economics, if nickel prices do go south.

Laterite Projects using high pressure acid leaching technology “account for half the projected increase in nickel supply and that if they fail - or are an economic failure - the supply demand outlook would be radically altered,” said Alan Heap, managing director of global commodity analysis at Citigroup Inc., in a Nov. 8 report. The technology treats laterite ore, which is harder to process than other nickel ores, using sulfuric acid at high temperatures and pressures.

On a similar parallel, sulphide mines have a huge environmental impact advantage over laterite deposits. This Australian report was submitted at a Canadian Metallugical Society meeting in Sudbury in August 2009.

http://users.monash.edu.au/~gmudd/files/2009-CMS-01-Nickel-Sulf-v-Lat.pdf