Strategic Raw Materials: Nickel Imperialism
Carter, W. & Goff, Fred
INTRODUCTION One of the central points to the discussion of imperialism has always been the question of raw materials -- more specifically, the dependency of the industrialized nations on Third...
...1 3 In an all-out effort to maintain its dominant position in the lucrative nickel market INCO has just launched the greatest single expansion program in the history of the capitalist world's mining industry...
...INCO did get into Indonesia -- a 25,000 square mile concession, equivalent to three per cent of that country's land surface...
...In the nickel stockpiling program, as in so many other government commodity support programs, the line between national security and corporate subsidy is a very hazy one at best...
...The Nicaro plant produced about 25 million pounds of nickel a year, an amount equivalent to 15 per cent of U.S...
...nickel supplies...
...This made INCO workers the highest paid union members in Canada...
...175-94...
...ore was still supplied by Freeport's subsidiary...
...1.6 South Africa...
...WORLD PRODUCTION OF NICKEL - 1969* Region and Country Percentage CAPITALIST WORLD...
...Falconbridge has a management contract to run Falcondo and act as its sales agent...
...Between 1952 and 1957 the U.S...
...Until now all of its production has come from the island of New Caledonia, a French posession in the Pacific Ocean, where it has enjoyed a near-monopoly of the island's vast nickel deposits...
...INTRODUCTION One of the central points to the discussion of imperialism has always been the question of raw materials -- more specifically, the dependency of the industrialized nations on Third World raw materials...
...However, the country is extremely dependent on foreign sources of nickel since it produces less than one tenth of its consumption and has no sizeable nickel reserves...
...Actual Projected 1969 1975 22.050 2,200 459,900 7,400 7,700 9,000 122,900 1,000 85,000 13,500 9,700 28,250 103,000 29,200 6,800 791,300 40,000 63,400 7,400 7,700 10,000 60,000 120,000 145,000 1,000 550,000 75,000 24,300 13,700 30,000 22,000 Total capitalist world production...
...companies mining rights to arge nickel deposits which lie in territory covered by one of the country's most active guerrilla groups -- the Army of Popular Liberation...
...4 The United States now consumes one third of the entire world's annual production of nickel...
...Realizing they had an ideal target, the United Steelworkers of America in 1969 staged a 128 day strike -the longest in INCO's history -- and came out of it with a 35 per cent increase in wages and benefits over a three year period...
...In recent years the product has been exported to the socialist countries, France, Italy, Holland and Sweden...
...The Interest Equalization Tax law, which imposes an 18 per cent levy on foreign securities purchased by Americans, carries an escape clause for companies more than 50 per cent owned by U.S...
...Total annual production capacity is to be 60 million pounds of nickel beginning in 1972...
...An important long-term aim of the contracts was to expand productive capacity abroad, thus securing more ample supplies for military and civilian uses...
...20.8 Australia...
...Ibid...
...5. For a summary of the stockpiling and production stimulation programs in Canada and Cuba, see Bidwell, pp...
...Greece...
...Philippines...
...The main representative for Rockefeller interests on the INCO board is Standard Oil chairman J. K. Jamieson, who is alsola director of the Rockefeller's Chase Manhattan Bank...
...However, the next chart which shows known nickel reserves, indicates that future prospects for nickel production lie much more in Cuba and New Caledonia (which have the world's largest known nickel reserves), Indonesia and other Third World tropical countries...
...The project is slated to provide 1,000 jobs, 10 per cent of them held by foreigners...
...Japan b...
...EXMIBAL) to develop the Niquegua nickel deposits they had found...
...There is a feeling among experts in the industry that some of the new projects recently announced may never come to fruition...
...1 | | T h i s The Pentagon's Counterinsurgency Research Infrastructure...
...Morgan Guaranty Trust, the principal Morgan bank, has three director interlocks with INCO and, along with the Bank of Montreal, is INCO's primary creditor...
...Whereas a four-engine piston powered plane required about 125 pounds of nickel, a modern jet requires 4,000 pounds and the planned supersonic transport (SST) will need an estimated nine tons or 18,000 pounds of the metal...
...New Caledonia...
...This article will be part of the pamphlet, along with specific country case studies and analyses of the principal mining companies and financial interests involved...
...See: The New York Times (April 23, 1970...
...For more on Sullivan and Cromwell and the Dulleses see: Victor Perlo, The Empire of High Finance (New York: International Publishers, 1957), especially pp...
...5 One of the companies which benefited most from the needs created by the Korean War and stockpiling was Falconbridge Nickel Mines of Canada...
...The largest nickel producer in Brazil is Morro do Niquel S.A...
...government invested $789 million in nickel expansion, particularly in two nearby and supposedly secure countries: Canada and Cuba (over $100 million was invested in nickel production at Nicaro, Oriente province...
...nickel stocks for World War II...
...Canada...
...In 1960 the two companies established Exploraciones y Explotaciones Mineras Izabal S.A...
...10025 P.O...
...INCO is traded on the New York Stock Exchange...
...147-166 and Panorma conoico Latinomericano, Prensa Latina (abana, 1964) pp...
...and INCO...
...49.9 39.5 2.9 7.3 0.2 23.8 0.8 1.1 0.3 21.6 ASIA...
...IFI will have a 50 per cent voting power on the management board of the Cerro Matoso venture...
...Greece...
...Falcondo), the new subsidiary that will operate the mine and processing facility, has a total equity investment of $15 million which is currently distributed as follows: Falconbridge 68.9 per cent, Armco Steel (a major producer of nickel-alloy stainless steels) 16.4 per cent, the Dominican government 6.3 per cent, and private Canadian and U.S...
...Department of Interior, Bureau of Mines, Washington, D.C., November 1970...
...The Dillon, Read package provided $114 million in long-term loans from three major U.S...
...This has been the underlying rationality of foreign investment in the extractive industries during the whole era of modern imperialism...
...It was Dulles who, prior to World War II, arranged a cartel agreement between INCO and I. G. Farben, the giant German trust, which allowed German to stockpiIg nickel for World War II armaments production...
...Copper-nickel al sistance to corrosion is ess plants, oil refineries and d Copper-nickel condensers use desalinization plant being b use miles of nickel-alloy tu ic and electrical properties explain their widespread use The fastest growing use steel and other ferrous allow over 40 per cent of all nick RI NACLA NEWSLETTER Vol...
...Looking at nickel from this perspective reveals additional reasons why there is a push to secure new deposits in the Third World and illustrates Magdoff's point that to protect and maintain leading positions, monopolistic industries are impelled to seek control over supplies of raw materials and markets wherever they exist...
...The Cerro Matoso project lies in the heart of territory covered by one of the country's most active guerrilla groups, the Army of Popular Liberation...
...10 for institutions...
...And, since control of capitalist industry rests upon the control of capital, a further question to examine is who controls the capital which finances and owns these corporations...
...The bulk of the financing for the project, $180 million, was arranged through a $25 million World Bank loan (its first to the Dominican Republic) and a $155 million package negotiated by Dillon, Read & Co., a leading Wall Street investment banking house...
...United States...
...Fortune magazine calculates that by 1975 the rate of production from Canadian reserves will be increased 70 per cent or more, thus presumably reducing the life of the reserves to 16 years...
...And the Keck family of Los Angeles and Houston owns over 50 per cent of Superior Oil and plays a dominant role in the management of both Falconbridge and McIntyre...
...EXMIBAL is 80 per cent owned by INCO and 20 per cent by Hanna...
...100.0 WESTERN HEMISPHERE...
...For example, INCO's Guatemalan plans have been gathering dust for nearly a decade...
...Poland...
...capital...
...Four Japanese companies have sent a team to survey additional nickel ore deposits in Minas Gerais.-6quarter century have provided well over half the capitalist world's nickel and over 80 per cent of the U.S...
...Foreign exchange to be earned by the project is estimated at over $4 million a year...
...3 With the introduction of the atomic bomb to modern warfare, military strategists called for less reliance on ground troops and greater reliance on high speed aircraft and missiles -- each containing and super-alloys increases...
...Botswana...
...Much of the documentation for this section on INCO and who controls it came from the following three articles: Forbes (December 1, 1967), The Magazine of Wall Street (March 16, 1968), and Fortune (March 1970...
...The Colombian government was advised during the negotiations by a consulting team from Harvard University...
...2 The following article will attempt to illustrate several points in the raw materials/imperialism discussion through a case study of nickel, one of the raw materials crucial to advanced technology...
...NICKEL DEMAND AND USE The current growth rate in demand for nickel in the industrialized captialist nations -- 8 per cent per year -- is running well ahead of the growth rate in the countries' GNP's...
...240,000 250,000 Yugoslavia...
...18.6 .TOTAL...
...1,000 - 4,400 Colombia...
...d) Possibly as large as Canada's NACLA will publish a pamphlet on nickel in Latin America this spring...
...1 0 INCO is a 100 per cent vertically integrated near-monopoly, controlling nickel operations from ore through refined metal production...
...768,600 2,099,800 Cuba...
...9 I s s u e...
...Engineering for the facility is being carried out by Gibbs & Hill, a subsidiary of Dravo Corp...
...Sherritt Gordon is controlled by Newmont Mining Corp...
...Office of Defense Mobilization signed a contract with the Cuban American Nickel Co...
...70.8 SOCIALIST WORLD...
...Le Nickel is negotiating with the Venezuelan government to create a joint venture which will operate a mine and plant producing 22 million pounds of ferronickel per year by 1975 or earlier...
...I-3large quantities of nickel...
...supply of nickel was devoted to military production...
...In 1968 this company received received a $2.5 million loan from the Japanese Sumitomo group to expand its production capacity from 2 to 6 million pounds of nickel a year at its Liberdade plant in Minas Gerais...
...government stockpile contract, which worked out to selling 200 million pounds of nickel at a premium rate of 40 cents a pound (upwards of 50 per cent) above the world market rates...
...7,000 Total socialist world production 321,000 347,000 Total world production 1,089,600 2,446,800 (a) - Source: FORTUNE, March 1970, p. 1 0 2 (b) - Japan has no nickel mines and depends on ore imports for its production.-8U.S...
...Falconbridge is the second largest producer of nickel in the capitalist world, a long way behind International Nickel Co., the leader...
...Falconbridge is controlled by the Keck family, wealthy independent California and Texas oil operators who control Superior Oil...
...Germany...
...100 - ? (a) Source: H. Landsberg et.al, Resources in America's Future (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1963) p. 443...
...DOMINICAN REPUBLIC After fourteen years of preparatory work and negotiations...
...INCO director G. C. Sharp has been a partner of Sullivan and Cromwell since 1929...
...GUATEMALA In 1956 the International Nickel Co...
...Accurate data on reserves are always difficult to obtain and are constantly changing as new reserves are found and old ones used up...
...The operations of Falconbridge and Sherritt Gordon will be discussed in a future article...
...of California (Chevron Petroluem Co...
...8. Fortune (March 1970...
...b) These are approximations...
...In 1928, 17 years after the great wave of monopoly smashing started in the U.S., INCO quietly domiciled itself in Canada...
...capital is Societe Le Nickel, the company which until recently had a monopoly of the New Caldeonian nickel deposits...
...For a brief analysis of the Office of Emergency Preparedness (which supervises the stockpile) as an industrial price support program in the guise of protecting national security see Bernard Nossiter's "Taking Stock of the Office of Emergency Preparedness" in The Washington Post (December 27, 1970...
...Falconbridge Nickel Mines of Canada signed an agreement in 1970 with the Balaguer government to develop a $195 million open-pit ferronickel mining project near Bonao...
...The contract was signed after three and a half years of negotiation and was reported by The New York Times (August 15, 1970) to be a model for future treatment of private investment capital in the Third World...
...IV, No...
...131-6...
...The World Bank loan was guaranteed by the Dominican government and the Dillon, Read amounts were guaranteed against "losses from expropriation, war, revolution, insurrection and inconvertibility" by the U.S...
...over the past nine years (1958-67) in good years or bad, they have averaged 33.5 per cent on the sales dollar (as compared with a median return of 13.8 per cent for the metals industry...
...Fortune (March 1960) and Journal of Commerce (January 5, 1971...
...6 The Vietnam War has once again put a crimp on U.S...
...844 955 Source: Journal of Commerce, December 28, 1970 * The 13 per cent increase in nickel consumption in 1970 is higher than the average 8 per cent annual increase over the previous years because a labor strike in 1969 cut INCO's production for that year by 150 million pounds...
...his emphasis) 1 4 One further reason impelling INCO to secure nickel sources outside Canada is its present vulnerability to labor strikes -- it is a company in a semi-monopoly position with an indispensable product in short supply...
...The new sources will be tropical laterite ores -- nickel is found in two basic types of deposit, nickelcopper sulphides, from which Canadian and other nontropical nickel is produced and nickel laterites, found in the tropics...
...Lost recently, Harry Magdoff, one of the editors of Monthly Review, attempted to clarify the issue by showing how imperialism is not so much a question of the industrialized countries' dependency on raw materials -- though the dependency is great -- as it is of the need of monopolistic business organizations to control production sources, prices and markets on a glob, The concentration of economic power in a limited number of giant firms became possible in many industries precisely because of the control by the firms over raw materials sources...
...During the Korean War as much as half the entire U.S...
...230 - ? Brazil...
...15 By expanding geographically and reducing its dependence on one source, INCO hopes to avoid similar settlements in the future...
...310 320 Others...
...cit., Part 1, p. 7. 10...
...Under this contract Freeport's subsidiary, the Nicaro Nickel Co., operated a nickel plant for 40 months, between 1942 and 1947...
...3) The largest mining contract in Colombian history was signed in July, 1970 giving two U.S...
...1,600 - ? Dominican Republic...
...By 1973 Falconbridge plans to be producing 63 million pounds of nickel a year...
...7. Barron's (March 4, 1968...
...Subscription price: $5 per year for individuals...
...Second-class postage paid at New York, New York...
...Cuba's reserves were first developed in 1942 by the U.S...
...which was already developing manganese deposits on the island) in order to build up U.S...
...9 / January 1971 Published monthly, except May-June and July-August, when it is published bi-monthly, at 160 Claremont Ave., New York, New York 10027...
...Following a decline in nickel demand at the war's end the U.S...
...Readers with first-hand knowledge or documentation to contribute should write to NACLA Nickel Project, Boa 226, Berkeley, CA 94701 before March 1, 1971...
...8 Even with the additional production Canada will not be able to match new demand...
...INCO's chairman, Henry Wingate, summarizes the move as follows: "The biggest potential sources of nickel in the Free World outside of Canada are New Caledonia, and we're there...
...Though no specific figures are currently available, W. G. Dahl, in charge of Falconbridge marketing, gives an idea of the magnitude of nickel use in Vietnam-related production: "any lull in the war would give the United States a chance to rebuild its strategic stockpile, now down to 100 million pounds, or a three-month supply at the present rate of consumption...
...Superior Oil.Co.of Houston controls McIntyre through a holding of about 40 per cent of its stock...
...I To date EXMIBAL has spent about $20 million preparing an open pit mine and smelter complex on the northwest shore of the lake...
...Societe Le Nickel is the capitalist world's third largest producer of nickel, just behind Falconbridge...
...But although he now considers it more imminent than ever, Guatemalan production is omitted from INCO's estimates of new capacity...
...Rhodesia...
...One reason is that INCO was smart enough -- and lucky enough -to escape the long arm of the U.S...
...various corporate annual reports and investment bank surveys of the nickel industry...
...n Minimum contribution for one-year subscription: $5.00...
...2.2 New Caledonia...
...WORLD NICKEL PRODUCTION (a) (in thousands of pounds) Country Australia...
...consumption, have little over 25 or 30 years of life left if they are mined at their current rates...
...Fortune magazine ruefully observed that "in effect, the union had held up the free world for its nickel and the ransom had been paid...
...consumption...
...By April 1960 the Moa Bay complex had stopped all activity...
...1 2 INCO's near-monoply position in the industry allows it to increase prices at will...
...For more on Hanna see NACLA's pamphlet "The Hanna Industrial Complex" available from both NACLA offices for 45 cents including postage) Source: Business Week September 5, 1964 Flob ^lip, a wmrwide ope ba ecappe mbu a Nklcagu COLOMBIA In July 1970 the Colombian government signed a contract with the Standard Oil Co...
...4. U.S...
...7,000 - 9,000 Indonesia...
...29.9 TOTAL...
...INCO has 80 per cent of the U.S...
...The announcement of the study was made at the annual meeting of the American Mining Congress, the mining industry's principal trade association...
...Soviet Union...
...In seven years, 1950-1957, under the stockpiling and nickel production contracts the U.S...
...for an open-pit mine and smelter complex exploiting the Cerro Matoso ferronickel deposits in Northern Colombia...
...The reason for this accelerated pace of demand for the silvery metal lies in its unusual combination of qualities which are key to advanced technological industry: strength, hardness, ductility, resistance to corrosion, and maintenance of strength at extreme temperatures...
...3. Percy Bidwell, Raw Materials, Council of Foreign Relations (New York: Harper & Bros., 1958), pp...
...United States...
...Department of Defense, Office of Assistant Secretary of Defense (Supply and Logistics), Annual Materials Conservation Report (Washington, D.C.: 1954), p. as quoted in Bidwell, p. 131-2...
...Nickel is currently Cuba's second largest export -- after sugar...
...This book has an entire chapter on "The Problem of Nickel" which is valuable background on the military importance of the metal...
...this condition is likely to continue for some time...
...Canada...
...As can be seen from the chart below on current nickel production, the top four world producers account for 87 per cent of the nickel mined: Canada 39.5 per cent, Soviet Union 21.6 per cent, New Caledonia (a French possession in the Pacific Ocean) 18.6 per cent, and Cuba 7.3 per cent...
...1,000 - ? Guatemala...
...market by the trade embargo...
...11...
...The study will be conducted by a newly-formed National Industrial Minerals Commission...
...government invested over $100 million expanding production at Nicaro...
...obtained a 40 year concession over 150 square miles near the vast Lake Izabal in eastern Guatemala...
...Brazil...
...As modern machines are built to run faster and faster and are submitted tr otroatr tr.oE tho nood fr hiOhPr nunlitv tPls added strength and durability to the steel used in bridges, ships, construction girders, gears and bearings in internal combustion engines, car transmissions and oil drilling equipment...
...government reopened the Nicaro processing plant, this time under a five year management contract with the National Lead Co...
...When alloyed with other metals these qualities are largely imparted to the resulting material...
...Box 57, Cathedral Park Station, New York, N.Y...
...327 390 Japan...
...interests 7.3 per cent...
...and the Hanna Mining Co...
...1 9 John Foster Dulles, one of Sullivan and Cromwell's most influential partners (and also one-time chairman of the Rockefeller Foundation and U.S...
...Faced with the problem of securing increased and steady supplies of this strategic metal (along with other scarce commodities), Congress passed the Defense Production Act in 1950 which made it possible for the U.S...
...Forbes (December 1, 1967...
...However, no firm contract has been signed with the Guatemalan government...
...Venezuela and Brazil also have sizeable nickel deposits at different stages of exploitation...
...a_- 7 - KNOWN WORLD NICKEL RESERVE DEPOSITS (a) (in thousands of short tons) Country Deposits in thousands of short tons (b) Cuba...
...A minimum investment of $20 million is projected...
...2) New nickel operations under construction will be the largest single private foreign investments in Guatemala and the Dominican Republic...
...Cuba...
...Guatemala, and we're there...
...How has INCO almost alone among the great Morgan companies, been able to fulfill its founder's dreams of continued market power...
...2. The New York Times (September 29, 1970...
...The Cerro Matoso project will have an initial production capacity of about 37 million pounds of nickel a year in the form of ferronickel containing equal amounts of nickel and iron...
...More Documents on U.S...
...When I -C-------5the project is completed it will be Guatemala's largest private foreign investment...
...E. C. Patterson is chairman of Morgan Guaranty's executive committee and director of INCO...
...Falconbridge is controlled by McIntyre Porcupine Mines of Canada, which holds 39 per cent of its stock...
...INCO is still dominated by Morgan capital with some Rockefeller representation...
...A total of $205 million is slated for investment in the project...
...Several countries have been omitted for lack of adequate data...
...EUROPE...
...Finland...
...In 1952, two years after the outbreak of the Korean War, the U.S...
...1.4 AFRICA...
...Venezuela...
...The project will be the largest private foreign investment in the country...
...and Indonesia, and I think we'll be there...
...Copyright 1970 by the North American Congress on Latin America, Inc...
...Since the start of the Korean War, nickel has remained the world's most critical material...
...Fortune (March 1970), p. 102...
...government to enter into long-term agreements with overseas and domestic producers for the delivery of nickel to the government "stockpile...
...market.ll Forbes magazine summarizes INCO's market position in rather frank terms: Of all industrial empires forged by J. P. Morgan at the turn of the century, there is only one that still remains unchallenged master of an unregulated industry -- (INCO...
...About 1 million out of a work force of eight million are unemployed in Colombia...
...The project will raise the country's total exports by 45 per cent, making ferronickel second only to sugar as a source of foreign exchange...
...17,000 - 20,000 New Caledonia...
...The company today controls 54 per cent of the capitalist world nickel market whereas a decade ago it controlled 75 per cent...
...This will increase Falconbridge's total worldwide production of nickel by 60 per cent...
...W. C. Bolenius is a director of Morgan Guaranty Trust Co...
...of Canada (INCO) and the Hanna Mining Co...
...1 As Magdoff's article went to press, U.S...
...Hanna and Chevron are each contributing a third of the $100 million investment, with the Institute of Industrial Development (IFI), a Colombian government agency, providing the remaining third...
...285-6...
...Colombian officials predict the project will create 1,700 jobs...
...Nickel accounts for 70 per cent of its sales and copper (a by-product of nickel sulphide ores) for 20 per cent, thus also ranking it among the world's largest copper producers...
...FOOTNOTES: 1. Harry Magdoff, "Is Imperialism Really Necessary?," Part 2, Monthly Review (November 1970), p. 6. Part 1 of this essay appeared in the issue of October 1970...
...5,000 - 8,000 Australia...
...INCO has four director interlocks with the Bank of Montreal...
...In addition, Sullivan and Cromwell, a prestigious Wall Street law firm closely associated with the Rockefellers, has two representatives on INCO's board and is the company's general counsel...
...VENEZUELA In 1968 Societe Le Nickel, a French nickel company, completed a feasibility study of nickel deposits in the Loma de Hierro in the state of Aragua...
...another Freeport subsidiary) for delivery of a maximum of 271 million pounds of nickel to be mined at Moa Bay and refined at Freeport's new plant in Louisiana...
...500 - ? United States...
...Today the story of nickel is of vital importance to at least four Latin American countries: 1) Cuba's second largest export -- after sugar -- is nickel, though all its product is banned from the U.S...
...In 1957, under a new expansion program, the U.S...
...2.5 OCEANIA...
...About three fourths of goes into alloys, either wit non-ferrous metals (copper, aluminum...
...They point out that the minimum four-year lead time between the discovery of an ore-body and the smelting of nickel allows a company time to shelve the project until market conditions are favorable...
...17 I __ I- 2 - materials just as eagc.' - st as voraciously as the United States...
...Barges will carry the processed nickel to the Atlantic port of Puerto de Santo Tomes de Castilla where it will be reloaded onto oceangoing ships...
...They are thus amenable to strip mining, whereas virtually all sulphide ores require more complex and expensive underground mining...
...nickel mining operations began a slowdown...
...Currently the Empresa Consolidada de Niquel, a Cuban government body, is developing nickel production at Nicaro (now the Major Rene Ramos Latour plant) and Moa Bay (now the Pedro Soto Alba plant) with the help of East European and Soviet technicians...
...Because of its resistance to extremes of temperature nickel is used as an alloy in both cryogenic applications, where liquids are stored and carried at extremely low temperatures (such as liquid natural gas) and in modern engines where metals must stand up under red heat...
...The study, Stans said, will define our needs and our competition at a time when the world's rapid growth in population places an unprecedented premium on the limited resources of this planet...
...The case of nickel in Cuba is a dramatically clear example of how Third World resources are used not for the development of the Third World but rather for the development and to fill the needs of the mother country -- in this case the United States and its war machine...
...Ibid...
...c) Canada...
...Military and Police Assistance Programs...
...Previously one of the Rockefeller brothers, Laurance sat on INCO's board...
...Lateritic ores have only a couple of mineral by-products and, until recent technological advances, have been more expensive to refine...
...9. Magdoff, op...
...Minerals Yearbook Voi.I-II (1968),(Washington D.C.:U.S.Department of Interior, 1968...
...H. S. Wingate is a director of Morgan Guaranty and is chairman of INCO...
...During the Korean conflict it catapulted into big time with a lush ten-year U.S...
...Agency for International Development...
...Morocco...
...Le Nickel is controlled by the French branch of the Rothschild family...
...1 6 In fact the only major capitalist world nickel mining company not controlled by U.S...
...100.0 * 1969 is the most recent year for which this data is available...
...CAPITAL CONTROLS NICKEL When looking at who owns and finances Canadian nickel it becomes evident that the three major producers, -- INCO, Falconbridge, and Sherritt Gordon Mines -- are all controlled by U.S...
...7 WHO HAS NICKEL: Countries and Ores One way of looking at who has nickel is to examine which countries are producing the metal and which have large reserves for future production...
...1 7 The Morgan empire's principal investment bank, Morgan Stanley & Co., was the leading financial house in the flotation of INCO's only public debt in the last 25 years -- $150 million worth of debentures issued in 1968...
...a sanctuary from high taxes and the threat of anti-trust...
...But during World War II military uses again predominated -practically no nickel was available for civilian uses...
...WHO HAS NICKEL: Corporations and Monopoly Capital A second way of looking at who has nickel is to examine which companies control the production of nickel (no matter where it is found), have long-term concessions covering the major known reserves, and refine and market the metal...
...insurance companies (Metropolitan Life, Equitable and Northwestern Mutual) and a medium-term loan from two banks ($21 million from the First National City Bank of New York and $20 million from the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce...
...Secretary of State), was general counsel and an executive committee member of INCO for 25 years...
...Cuban nickel, once so coveted by the United States, is now banned from the U.S...
...Dominican Republic Finland...
...In October 1959 the Cuban revolutionary government issued a new mining law and all U.S...
...The contracts let out under this program have been sizeable and have proven bonanzas for the nickel producing firms...
...Through the end of World War I the main demand for nickel came from military and naval establishments...
...The ability to maintain this concentrated power, to ward off native and foreign competitors, to weaken newcomers, and to conduct affairs in accordance with monopolistic price and production policies depended on the alertness and aggressiveness of the giant firms to obtain and maintain control over major segments of the supplies of raw materials -- on a world scale...
...The survey indicated promising prospects for commercial exploitation of these deposits...
...Brazil...
...INCO chairman Wingate was associated with Sullivan and Cromwell from 1929 until he joined INCO as assistant secretary in 1939...
...Guatemala...
...However, 1939, after disarmament, the market had shifted and 85 per cent of the world's annual output was absorbed by civilian production...
...The company has raised the producer price ot nickel rom / cents a pound in 1965 to $1.33 at the end of 1970...
...It will review our potential use and our commitment of these resources in the face of increased affluence and growing demand by many other countries which seek NORTH AMERICAN CONGRESS ON LATIN AMERICA (NACLA) NACLA NEWSLETTER P.O...
...Strategic Raw Materials: Nickel Imperialism...
...c) Considered to be as large as Cuba's...
...3,000 -(d) Philippines...
...The contract was the biggest in the history of the Colombian minign industry...
...Indonesia...
...I thought by the end of 1962 we would start a project and I have thought so ever since," says Wingate (INCO's chairman...
...In 1954 the Defense Department reported that nickel comes closest to being a true 'war metal.' It deserves first priority among materials receiving conservation attention...
...Box 226, Berkeley, California 94701 The NACLA NEWSLETTER is published ten times a year by the North American Congress on Latin America...
...Noticias, a publication of the National Foreign Trade Council, reported in February 1970 that Cuba has about 40 per cent of the world's known reserves...
...SOURCE: "World Mineral Production in 1969", ineral Industry Survey, U.S...
...Lateritic ores are usually surface deposits formed by weathering action in the tropics...
...Colombia...
...market...
...4.1 Rhodesia...
...In fact, the Canadian reserves, which for the last LNS-4Nickel Projects in Latin America CUBA Cuba has the world's largest known nickel reserves...
...9 The story of nickel in the capitalist world is dominated by one company, the International Nickel Company of Canada (INCO) which has its principal mines in Canada but is over half owned by Americans and is run from an office at 67 Wall Street...
...BRAZIL Nickel deposits have been found in the states of Minas Gerais, Goias, Bahia, Sao Paulo, and Rio de Janeiro...
...residents and whose stock is traded on a nationally registered exchange...
...The Magazine of Wall Street article points out an important sidelight to the fact that over 50 per cent of INCO's stock is owned by Americans: "this is a big plus from an investor's viewpoint...
...The ore will be processed at a smelter located near the minesite and trucked 250 miles to the port of Cartagena...
...Forbes illustrates how this control over prices and markets affects INCO's profits: "INCO's operating profit margins reflect its market dominance...
...WAR METAL Though nickel had been produced on a sustained basis since 1838, it was not until the navies of the United States, Germany, England, and France accepted nickel-steel (instead of carbon-steel) armor plate for warships in the 1890's that nickel consumption began to pick up...
...Falconbridge Dominicana C.A...
...It is controlled by the Rothschilds...
...1.4 Indonesia...
...Fortune magazine arTch 1970, page 138) summarized some of the delays as follows...
...Initial production is scheduled to begin late 1972...
...South Africa...
...CAPITALIST WORLD PRODUCTION, 1969 & 1970 (in millions of pounds) 1969* 1970 Western Europe...
...trustbusters...
...151 175 United States...
...The declining grade of ore being lifted from Canadian mines (2.7 per cent nickel content in 1968 down from 3.0 per cent in 1960), the rising cost of underground mining, the prospect of an increase in Canadian taxes, and the inadequacy of Canadian reserves and production to meet the capitalist world's nickel demands are some of the factors pressuring nickel miners to look to the Third World tropics for new sources...
...Cuba has the world's largest known nickel deposits...
...Total nickel production in 1969 was 487,400 metric tons...
...Initial production was scheduled for late 1959...
...In October 1960 all nickel operations in Cuba were nationalized...
...Secretary of Commerce, Maurice Stans, announced, in rather ominous terms, that the government is going to undertake its first comprehensive investigation of the nation's mineral resources since the Paley Commission in 1950...
...government which contracted Freeport Sulphur Co...
...6. Business Week (September 5, 1964...
...81,000 90,000 Russia...
...Most of these deposits are in Oriente province at Nicaro, Moa Bay and Mayari...
...56 70 TOTAL...
...Sulphide ores are usually richer in nickel content and have a larger number of by-products -- for every 20 pounds of nickel Canadian ores yield they also give 19 pounds of copper and seven other mineral by-products...
...government closed the Nicaro plant in March 1947...
Vol. 4 • January 1971 • No. 9
