TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – Toronto-based FNX Mining is continuing mining at its Sudbury operations, and will stockpile ore until Vale Inco, which processes FNX's ore, restarts its mill.

FNX has an offtake agreement with Vale Inco, which processes and markets all the firm's ore production, and which announced in April it will close its own mines and processing facilities for eight weeks, starting from June 1.

There is also the possibility that Vale may not restart operations as scheduled on July27, because the firm is in the midst of contract negotiations with its Sudbury workers.

FNX has suspended shipments of ore production to the custom mill and is temporarily stockpiling its ore production on surface for future processing, the company said on Monday.

The underground development at both the Levack footwall deposit and the Podolsky Mine's 2000 deposit will also continue as planned.

The company will continue to evaluate its options, which include shipping ore to an alternative third party processing facility, continuing to stockpile ore on surface or temporarily suspending ore production until Vale resumes operations.

“Even in light of the eight-week shutdown and possible labour interruption at our third party's custom processing facilities, we are continuing to mine as planned and will stockpile the ore on surface for processing at a later date, while maintaining our current Sudbury workforce,” said FNX CEO Terry MacGibbon.

After nickel prices dropped last year, FNX suspending nickel-ore mining at its McCreedy West and Levack mines, but continues to mine higher-margin copper and precious-metals rich areas at McCreedy, Levack and the new Podolsky mine.

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