Brazilian miner Vale （VALE5.SA） （VALE.N） said on Friday it will lose around 5 percent of its total 2011 nickel production due to a 16-week shutdown of a smelter furnace in Canada.
A spokesman for the company said the furnace No. 2 at its Copper Cliff smelter in Sudbury, Ontario, had developed a leak on Feb. 6 that caused water lines that cool the furnace to rupture. The shutdown is expected to last for a minimum of 16 weeks.
"The stoppage of the furnace implies a loss of an estimated 15,000 tonnes of refined nickel, equivalent to 5 percent of total planned production in 2011," the company said in a statement.
Vale produced 114,000 tonnes of nickel in the first nine months of 2010, according to a securities filing in October. It had expected to ramp up nickel production this year after long-running strikes at its Canadian operations crimped output in 2010.
Last month Vale said it shut its ore milling operation at Voisey's Bay in Eastern Canada following a tailings leak, but operations at that site have since resumed.
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