Employees work in a ferro-nickel smelter owned by Indonesia’s state miner in the southeast province of Sulawesi. The country has banned raw material exports, a move which could produce global nickel shortages in 2015.YUSUF AHMAD/Reuters
The former Inco executives who are running Royal Nickel Corp. are losing one of their own, as the junior miner's chief executive officer departs for a top job at one of the world's largest mining companies, Anglo American.
Royal Nickel CEO Tyler Mitchelson, who worked for years at giant Canadian nickel miner Inco, has been recruited to help Anglo American CEO Mark Cutifani improve the company's mining operations.
That will leave Toronto-based Royal Nickel in a lurch as it tries to raise funds to build its nickel mine in Quebec.
Royal Nickel has a number of former Inco executives who gradually left Inco after it was taken over by Brazil's Vale in 2007, including Inco's former chairman and CEO, its chief operating officer and its marketing executive.
Mr. Mitchelson's overseas move to London will see him reunited with Mr. Cutifani, who he has known since 2004 when the pair worked for Inco in the prolific nickel basin in Sudbury.
Mark Selby, another former Inco executive and Royal Nickel's senior vice-president of business, will serve as interim CEO of the Toronto-based company.
Mr. Mitchelson's departure comes after a tough year for the mining industry. The slump in metal prices has pummelled many companies' stocks and made it difficult for junior miners to raise funds. Nickel has been hit harder than other base metals because the market is flooded with the material.
Royal Nickel's stock was trading at 39 cents Tuesday afternoon. It went public in December, 2010, at $2 a share.
Mr. Selby said his investors have not raised concerns about the management changes.
The company must raise $1.2-billion (U.S.) to build the Dumont project in Quebec and is hoping to partner with a larger miner to help shoulder the construction costs.
Mr. Mitchelson and Mr. Selby, who have been the face of Royal Nickel, will go to Japan next week to reassure potential investors.
Both executives have forecast a turnaround in the nickel industry after Indonesia followed through on a plan to ban raw material exports. If the country upholds the ban, the world will start running out of nickel in 2015. That has helped prop up Royal Nickel's share prices so far this year.
Rachelle Younglai