Vale has announced that its subsidiary Vale Base Metals has launched a strategic review to explore and evaluate a range of alternatives, including the potential sale, for its mining and exploration assets in Thompson, Manitoba. The Thompson review is part of a process to optimise Vale Base Metals’ asset base, ensuring the competitiveness of its vertically integrated nickel portfolio, and is expected to conclude in H2 2025.

The Thompson Nickel Belt is a proven nickel deposit with significant resource upside and the operations have been producing nickel since 1956. The assets include two operating underground mines, an adjacent mill and significant exploration opportunities on the 135-km long Thompson Nickel Belt. Thompson produced 10,500 t of Vale Base Metals’ finished nickel production for the 12-month period ending Q3 2024.

Thompson, Manitoba, known as ‘the Hub of the North,’ is located 740 km north of Winnipeg and is named after John F. Thompson, Chairman of International Nickel when a significant body of ore was discovered there in 1956.