It's still too early in the U.S.-Canada trade dispute to determine what impact tariffs will have on Vale Base Metals’ U.S.-bound nickel shipments, given the rapidly changing situation, according to company chair Mark Cutifani.
Cutifani's hope is that federal and provincial parties can return to discussions to agree on a long-term solution.
“We hope that, from a political point of view, the U.S., Canada, Ontario can all come together and sort out what should occur and, at least once the rhetoric sort of settles down a little bit, we hope that cool heads will prevail and we'll find solutions that work," Cutifani told Northern Ontario Business in an interview.
Cutifani was at Laurentian University March 7 as the guest speaker during the Goodman School of Mines Lecture Series.
In these early days, Cutifani said, the company's main priority is to ensure supply continues to reach its customers.
“Our sensitivity has been for our customers, in making sure that we could continue to supply and support them,” Cutifani said. “We also understood the position and the frustration the premier (Doug Ford) and others expressed.
“We've chatted to everybody, and I think we all agree that we want to keep supplying, but at the same time, we don't want to get caught up in the emotion of the conversation, because it's the first day, and in many cases, we've seen, things change very quickly. And guess what? It's changing very quickly.”
Cutifani was asked for his reaction to Ford's assertion, earlier this week, that he would halt U.S.-bound nickel shipments in response to the 25 per cent tariff levied on Canadian goods by U.S. President Donald Trump.
In remarks made at the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada convention, and again during an appearance on the NBC news program Meet the Press, Ford said he wouldn't hesitate to stockpile high-grade Canadian nickel as a counter-measure against the tariffs.
It's a move that would have a disastrous impact on the states, Ford said, given nickel's importance to the U.S. military and manufacturing sectors, in particular.
“I will stop shipments going to the U.S. for nickel,” he told NBC anchor Aaron Gilchrist. “I will shut down manufacturing, because 50 per cent of the nickel you use is coming out of Ontario.”
In Sudbury, Vale Base Metals operates five mines, a mill, a smelter, and a refinery. Its main commodity is nickel, but it also produces copper, cobalt, platinum group metals, gold and silver.
The company also operates a nickel mine and concentrator at Voisey's Bay in Labrador.
In 2024, Vale Base Metals produced 159,900 tonnes from all its operations.
Cutifani declined to get into the details of how customers in the U.S. and around the world might be affected should Ford make good on his promise.
But he did say the company does not believe any kind of shutdown in operations is imminent.
“Not for our business, in that we have other potential customers if that were to be an issue,” Cutifani said.
“But we're not at that point, not even thinking about those types of issues. We understand what our contingency plans would be but … we think that's still a while off yet.”
