NICKEL
Serving the World

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries vast deposits of nickel ore were discovered in Northern Ontario. Through the careful application of entrepreneurial, scientific, and technical skills in the development of these deposits, Canada emerged as the world’s leading nickel producer.

Unrefined nickel had been used for millennia. But miners of copper and silver in Saxony regarded nickel ores as troublesome and called them “Kupfernickel” — “Old Nick’s (The Devil’s) Copper.” In 1781, when Axel Fredrik Cronstedt, a Swedish mineralogist and chemist, isolated nickel he retained that name.

To develop a mineral deposit discovered near Sherbrooke, Quebec, a Boston entrepreneur, W. E. C. Eustis, organized the Orford Nickel and Copper Company in 1865 and established a refinery in New Jersey to process the ore. Later, in August 1883, near the site of present-day Sudbury, Ontario, Tom Flanagan, a blacksmith working on the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway took samples of rust-coloured material later identified as containing copper sulphide.

Thomas and William Murray, merchants from Pembroke, Ontario, registered a claim in February 1884 on the site where Flanagan had found his specimens. The Murray Mine subsequently became a steady producer of nickel. Other discoveries made nearby led to the development of the Worthington, Frood, Stobie, Creighton, Evans, Levack, and Copper Cliff mines.

Among the many prospectors and developers who came to the region was Samuel J. Ritchie, an Ohio factory owner. Ritchie and business associates acquired the Copper Cliff, Creighton, Evans, Frood and Stobie mining claims for the Canadian Copper Company which had its head office in Cleveland, and authorized to operate in Canada.

Open-pit mining commenced in May 1886 on the Copper Cliff site. Robert Thompson of the Orford Company signed a contract for the smelting of 100,000 tons of 7 percent copper ore at the Orford refinery in New Jersey. When tested, however, the ore from the Canadian Copper Company mine at Copper Cliff was found to contain only 4.5 percent copper. It also contained 2.5 percent nickel. This was not what had been expected nor what was wanted. Since Thompson and Ritchie were primarily interested in copper they had to solve three problems: copper and nickel had to be separated and refined; a nickle market had to be developed; a profit had to be made.

Initially, difficulties were encountered in separating the copper from the nickel. Fortunately, when a workman hit a fragment of the cooled molten mixture with a sledgehammer the nickel and copper broke apart. Experimentation established that if sodium sulphide was added during the refining process, and the molten mixture was cooled slowly, two layers formed which could be separated. Most of the sodium and copper sulphides were in the top layer while the bottom was largely nickel sulphide. Through repetition of this process and the careful use of additives and roasting, the sulphur could be removed and commercial quality nickel would result. The “Orford tops and bottoms process” was patented in 1890. With refinements, it was widely used until the middle of the 20th century. While Thompson and his colleagues were patenting the Orford process, Ludwig Mond, a chemical manufacturer in England, patented the nickel carbonyl process, using carbon monoxide as his refining agent.

With the refining problem solved, the question of a market for nickel remained. The total world production of nickel in 1886 had been less than one thousand tons with a selling price of a $1.00 per pound. Ritchie and his colleagues in the Canadian Copper Company might be able to recover their investment and even enjoy a profit from the copper in the Sudbury deposits, but what was to be done with the nickel? Happily, an English inventor and metallurgist, John Gamgee, provided the solution to that problem. The US Navy had approved the use of nickel steel plate which Gamgee had developed and the US Congress voted $1 million for the purchase of the new metal. Other countries followed. Additional uses for nickel were gradually developed.

Canadian Copper considered buying the Mond process, but could not agree on a price. As a result of an internal disagreement, Samuel Ritchie was ousted, but this company which he had created dominated nickel production in the 1890s.

When Mond could not sell his nickel carbonyl refining process, he incorporated the Mond Nickel Company in 1900, acquired nickel properties in the Sudbury area, processing the ore in Wales.

In 1901 Thomas Edison, requiring nickel for a storage battery, acquired mining rights in the Sudbury region. When quicksand was encountered Edison abandoned his Sudbury project. Had Edison continued drilling deeper a body of nickel-copper ore would have been reached. In the late 1920s the Edison site was acquired by Falconbridge Nickel Mines. The successful development of that company by Thayer Lindsley is one of the great sagas of the nickel industry throughout the world.

In 1902 the International Nickel Company was incorporated in the State of New Jersey through the amalgamation of Canadian Copper, the Orford Copper Company, the Société Minière Caledonienne and others. When it was created, the International Nickel Company was the world’s dominant nickel producer and refiner. it became the primary catalyst in the expanding use of nickel.

Alloys of nickel and steel, which possess special properties of strength and toughness, were gradually used in the manufacture of automobiles, buses, railway locomotives, trucks, and agricultural, mining, and construction equipment. Earlier, of course, nickel was used for coinage. Initially, however, when International Nickel came into being the use of nickel alloys for military purposes provided the primary market.

In September 1915, the Government of Ontario appointed a Commission to inquire into the “resources, industries and capacities, both present and future ... in connection with nickel and its ores.” In its report the Commission noted that, given the extent of Ontario’s nickel deposits, Ontario possessed the most extensive, high quality nickel deposits known to exist anywhere in the world. It also noted that the refining of nickel could be successfully carried out in Ontario. The International Nickel Company had indicated a year earlier that this would be done.

In July 1916, The International Nickel Company of Canada Limited (INCO) was incorporated. Control of all mining, smelting and refining processes of the International Nickel Company registered in New Jersey, were transferred to the new Canadian company.

Following World War I there were two major nickel producing companies in Canada — INCO and the Mond Nickel Company. In 1928 the two companies merged. By that time Falconbridge Nickel Mines had been incorporated.

In his early efforts to develop Falconbridge, Thayer Lindsley relied on several of INCO’s experts, whom he persuaded to join his new company. Lindsley knew that INCO was the primary custodian of scientific and technical information concerning the production, refining and uses of nickel. A key contributor, over many years, to INCO’s success was Robert C. Stanley.

In 1901 Stanley joined the Orford Company as a metallurgist. Three years later, he devised the method for producing a new nickel alloy. Stronger than pure nickel it resisted the severely corrosive effects of rapidly flowing seawater. This remarkable quality resulted in this new metal, named Monel, being used in a variety of domestic and industrial applications. Shortly after Stanley became President of INCO in 1922, a new INCO rolling mill was built in Huntington, West Virginia. Subsequently INCO’s international operations in the production of nickel alloys were based there.

The leadership which Stanley provided came at a critical time in INCO’s history. During World War I the production of the company had been geared almost entirely to military needs. When the war ended the nickel industry was largely without markets. New uses for nickel had to be found to ensure INCO’s long-term development and financial viability. Under Robert Stanley’s direction continuous, high quality research was given priority. Nickel alloys were used in the manufacture of aircraft, electrical, energy and marine equipment and parts and many other products.

As soon as airborne magnetometers were available, INCO’s exploration experts used them in their search for nickel deposits. Canada’s second largest nickel deposit was discovered in northern Manitoba in 1956 by this means. An entirely new community named Thompson, Manitoba, came into being as a result. It was named in honour of John Fairfield Thompson, INCO’s former chairman and chief executive officer.

INCO’s emphasis on research and innovation, which Robert Stanley initiated and emphasized, has been, perhaps, the single most significant factor in INCO’s continuance as the world’s leading nickel company. Early in the 1990s, additional large nickel deposits identified on the western edge of the Sudbury Basin were confirmed as the largest known, undeveloped nickel-copper deposits in that basin. Other advanced technologies have enabled INCO to re-open and to operate safely older mines closed earlier for safety reasons.

A century after nickel was discovered and began to be mined in Canada, two Canadian mining companies ^__ INCO and Falconbridge ^__ continue as leading international nickel producers. Major competition from Russia, however, has reduced Canada’s share of the world nickel market. Ironically, Russia gained control after World War II of the Petsamo district of northern Finland where, in 1935, an INCO exploration team had discovered a rich nickel orebody which INCO developed, financed and supervised until late 1939. By that time thoroughly modern mining and smelting facilities had been installed. These fell under German control during the war and later under Russian.

INCO was compensated later for its loss, but it is one of the strange ironies of twentieth century history that Inco, by providing foundations for the modern Soviet nickel industry, was the early creator of its own competition. This is a further, though ironic, indication of the extent to which Canadian companies have taught the world how to discover, develop, process and use nickel.