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Vale Inco COO says Sudbury to see sustainable growth

In the year he's been with Vale Inco as its COO, the thing that's most struck Parviz Farsangi about the company is its unwavering commitment to ensuring its aggressive growth is kept sustainable.
In the year he's been with Vale Inco as its COO, the thing that's most struck Parviz Farsangi about the company is its unwavering commitment to ensuring its aggressive growth is kept sustainable.

Speaking to a crowd of more than 100 at the Sudbury branch of the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum (CIM) on Sept. 11, Farsangi emphasized the stronger emphasis Vale Inco is putting on remaining in its member communities for the long haul.

The idea is to remain competitive at any nickel price, he says.

"I'm not saying we get it right every time, but everything is focused on sustainable, long-term, balanced growth and not short-term thinking. I've been around, and the intensity of this process is unique. Not that it was bad before, but it's quite a bit more focused and quite a bit more intense."
Having spent many years in senior management positions with Timmins in Sudbury with Falconbridge Limited, Farsangi hailed the experience and infrastructure of the Sudbury camp as being key to accomplishing some of these goals. However, he quickly added that the roads could be a bit better, to raucous laughter from the crowd.

Another element of maintaining the health of its assets in the Sudbury camp is the flurry of investments the company has made, making local activity the busiest it's ever been, he says. These include the development of the ramp at the Garson Mine, the new Totten Mine, development of the Coleman 170 orebody, and other potential projects such as increasing reserves at Creighton, and the feasibility of Copper Cliff Deep. All told, the company has $600 million in capital expenditures in the Sudbury camp this year.

Local operations are still on pace to meet its production target of 298 million pounds of nickel through 2008. This marks the upward swing of production the camp has seen in the two years since Vale has taken over, Farsangi says.

Local production was 242 million pounds in 2006, and 250 million in 2007.

That trend is expected to continue through the company's aggressive campaign of investment and growth, as nickel production is expected to reach 500,000 tonnes, or "another Inco," by 2011.

With these numbers in mind, Vale Inco is also looking to diversify itself globally by product, point of origin and destination in the years to come.

Despite these goals, projects in the area aren't without their mounting challenges, such as the omnipresent problem of skilled labour shortages, Farsangi says.

A century of mining activity in the Sudbury basin has also found local companies occasionally needing to go deeper, and Vale Inco is no different.

Having to continue at depth brings not only tougher working conditions but also elevated costs, which are compounded further by increasingly tighter regulations and permitting requirements. "We have the capacity to do it, but it's still not easy," says Farsangi.

Despite prior talks with Xstrata about the potential in finding efficiencies in their various shared mining camps, Farsangi says there are none currently underway.

"There are no discussions for synergies in the Sudbury basin," he says. "There's nothing for me to report."