Nickel Availability

Nickel is one of the essential properties used in manufacturing today. While its history goes back many years before today, its concentration has mostly been narrowed down to a few popular places. Currently, around half of the world’s nickel resources are concentrated in countries like Russia, Indonesia, Australia, Canada, and South Africa. These places form the hotspots for the discovery of nickel.

To properly understand terms, it is important to draw a contrast between nickel resources and nickel reserves. Resources indicate the availability of a particular material is known and unknown quantities of deposit. It implies that while there is an idea of its existence, its potentials and prospects have not been converted into more comprehensive figures. 

On the other hand, terming a mineral resource a reserve implies that is there is a higher level of assurance about its prospects. As a result of exploration, the resource can now be described in more specific numbers. Miners can determine how much there is through the discoveries that they have made. It also translates into an economic potential that can be better estimated. 

Nickel can be found in economic quantities in laterite-type concentrations of ore in the soil. Based on current figures, nickel resources are estimated to be about 300 million tons. The resource is also said to exist in tremendous quantities at the bottom of the sea. Within manganese nodules, which can be found in different seafloor areas, are nickel deposits that tower in millions of tons.

In a further development of its prospects, nickel is also expected to witness an even wider growth level in the coming years. This is as new advances are recorded in mining technology. With this, there are projections that nickel deposits in remote locations will get unearthed as the commodity’s economic potential continues to increase. Miners will evolve in such locations using cutting-edge technology to discover formerly unknown quantities.