Glencore among parties in Chalice’s Gonneville sale

afr.com:

Nickel explorer Chalice Mining is smarting from a 55.5 per cent slump in its share price since the release of last month’s scoping study, but its strategic partner search is ticking along.

Sources said Chalice’s Gonneville project, which claims to be the world’s largest nickel sulphide discovery and Australia’s largest platinum group elements discovery in recent years, received offers from a handful of miners and trading houses when it collected indicative bids in mid-September.

Chalice Mining’s former chair Tim Goyder and CEO Alex Dorsch.  

It is understood Glencore and London-listed mining giant Anglo American participated in the first round of the auction.

Glencore, for its part, is a major player in nickel, producing 107,500 tonnes and marketing 263,000 tonnes of the steelmaking ingredient in 2022. However, sources noted the Swiss commodities trader prefers offtake agreements over greenfield development, raising questions over its commitment to the process.

Meanwhile, Anglo American is the world’s largest producer of platinum – although best known in Australia for its metallurgical coal investments.

Japanese trading house Sumitomo also took an early look, sources said, as did at least one major original equipment manufacturer. Chalice, Anglo and Glencore declined to comment.

Of course, the big question is which party, if any, is willing to firm up the early interest into a binding proposal – and if the number is sufficient for Chalice to proceed rather than recut the project to a smaller size.

Chalice is expected to spend the coming weeks thrashing out commercial negotiations with prospective partners. It’s not a traditional auction process, with suitors exploring a range of options for Gonneville including joint