TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – Brazilian-owned Vale Inco has restarted partial production at its Copper Cliff nickel smelter in Sudbury, Ontario, spokesperson Cory McPhee confirmed on Wednesday.

More than 3 000 members of the United Steelworkers (USW) union employed by Vale Inco in Sudbury and Port Colborne downed tools on July 13 last year, after failing to agree with the company on contracts.

Employees at the firm's Voisey's Bay operation, in Newfoundland and Labrador, followed suit on August 1.

While there are no talks on the horizon between the company and the union in Sudbury, McPhee told Mining Weekly Online that negotiations have been scheduled for this weekend with the striking Voisey's Bay workers.

“Late last week, we presented a new offer to the union and they have gotten back to us now after having had a chance to review it and indicated that they would be prepared to entertain further talks.”

The USW said on Tuesday that, while it was not entirely happy with Vale's new proposal, it represented “a starting point”.

SMELTER AT HALF CAPACITY

McPhee said the Copper Cliff smelter was restarted on Tuesday evening.

The company is running just one of the two furnaces, which means production from the smelter will be about half what it was before operations were shut down last year.

The smelter will produce a nickel matte product, which will be sent to Vale Inco's refinery in Clydach, Wales, for further processing, McPhee said.

Vale, which says it needs concessions from workers if the operations are to remain economic, restarted its Sudbury mill and some mining operations using nonstriking workers in October.

It has been targeting copper- and precious-metals-rich ore, and also processing ore mined by smaller rival FNX Mining, with which it has an offtake agreement.

The company continues to produce a copper concentrate from the mill, and is drawing down on inventory of nickel concentrates to feed the smelter, McPhee said.

The smelter is being operated primarily with nonstriking Vale Inco staff, he said.

The USW union has said it has concerns about the safety of nonstriking workers and local communities if the smelter is restarted by inexperienced employees, but Vale says that it has taken the neccessary steps to ensure the workers are properly trained.

Vale, the world's second-largest mining company, bought Canadian nickel-miner Inco in 2007.

Unionised workers at Xstrata Nickel, the other big producer in the Sudbury area, voted last week to approve a strike mandate if a deal is not reached with the company before the current contract expires on January 31.

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