commissioned a second furnace in September 2025, expanding nominal
nickel capacity by 60 percent. Brazil's nickel industry is moving from a
steady contributor to a strategically positioned supplier.¹²
tonnes — a material contribution to the global supply picture that the
for 2026 was 175,000-200,000 tonnes, with the upper bound reflecting the
full commissioning of the new furnace capacity at Onça Puma.¹
spent much of 2025 in the lower half of the recent trading range, partly
because Indonesian supply surged and partly because macro conditions
softened industrial demand. Several global operators responded by
slowing or shutting high-cost mines — Australian nickel production fell
dropped 24 percent.² Vale's Brazilian operations held their output
steady through this environment, reflecting the comparative cost
position of the Carajás complex and its associated nickel assets.
commissioning of a second furnace at Onça Puma, completed in September
approximately 40,000 tonnes of nickel per year.¹
producing since 2011. It processes lateritic ore through
pyrometallurgical smelting, producing ferronickel that is sold into
global stainless-steel and alloy markets. The second-furnace expansion
is operationally significant because it both raises the site's output
ceiling and provides redundancy — a single-furnace operation suffers
more from unplanned downtime than a dual-furnace one.
supply continues to ramp and Australian and Philippine supply contracts,
the relative importance of Brazilian nickel inside the global pipeline
has risen. Onça Puma's capacity addition, combined with Vale's other
non-Russian share of global nickel supply.
tonnes on its aggregated national figure, ranking Brazil the fourth- or
fifth-largest global producer depending on methodology.² The country's
reserve position is stronger: approximately 16 million tonnes of
contained nickel, which ranks Brazil fourth globally after Indonesia (62
national figure because the company operates meaningful capacity outside
two numbers reflects the integrated global footprint that Vale brings to
the sector rather than a methodology inconsistency.
operates Barro Alto and Codemin in Goiás, Horizonte Minerals is
developing the Araguaia project in Pará, and several smaller operators
contribute incremental production. The combined Brazilian footprint is
more diverse than the Vale headline suggests, and several of the
non-Vale projects have growth potential.
percent increase driven by the continued ramp of new HPAL (high-pressure
acid leach) and smelting operations that process the country's laterite
resources.² Indonesian reserves sit at approximately 62 million tonnes,
dwarfing Brazilian holdings.
is dominated by Chinese-invested operations and is particularly focused
on class-2 nickel for stainless-steel use, with growing but still
limited class-1 nickel for battery applications. Brazilian nickel output
includes both class-1 and class-2 streams, and Vale's Canadian
refineries produce substantial class-1 material that is specifically
relevant to battery markets.
medium-term dynamic. By calling for development of seabed mineral
deposits — including polymetallic nodules and ferromanganese crusts
containing nickel — the order opens a potential new supply leg. A USGS
approximately 4.5 billion tonnes of nickel, though commercial extraction
remains years from reality.²
strategic choice. The company is prioritising production stability and
capacity additions in its Brazilian operations at a time when many
global peers are slowing capital deployment. That choice reflects both
the strength of Vale's balance sheet and its view that nickel's
medium-term demand curve — driven by EV battery growth and
stainless-steel consumption — will reward producers who have capacity in
place when demand firms.
critical-minerals narrative. As Vale, CBMM, Sigma Lithium and the
emerging Brazilian rare-earth operators position simultaneously, the
country is building a critical-minerals portfolio whose breadth is
unmatched outside China. The Onça Puma commissioning is one piece of a
larger story.
against the actual performance of the new Onça Puma furnace and against
the continuation of subdued price conditions. If the expansion runs
smoothly and prices recover as Indonesian supply growth moderates,
earnings. If prices stay soft and Indonesian supply continues to expand,
the capacity addition may produce more tonnage than the market absorbs
comfortably. Either way, Brazilian nickel now sits in a stronger
strategic position than it has in a decade — supplied by a major with a
long-horizon perspective, supported by public policy that treats
critical minerals as strategic infrastructure for Western industrial
economies, and increasingly integrated into global battery-supply-chain
discussions that were previously dominated almost entirely by