CVRD invests $66M in Sudbury.

• Position: NEWS

CVRD has approved "the largest investment program ever undertaken ... by any mining company in the world," but 80 percent the money earmarked for 2008 will be spent in Brazil and New Caledonia.

Of the $11 billion the company plans to invest next year, $7.5 billion will be spent on new projects and $2.5 billion on support for existing operations.

Of the $7.5 billion, $66 million will be allocated for Totten Mine, west of Sudbury.

The Goro project in New Caledonia, touted as "one of the largest deposits of lateritic nickel in the world," will account for $723 million of spending in 2008. Two other lateritic deposits in Brazil--Onca Puma and Vermelho--will see spending of $672 million.

Together, these three new mines will boost CVRD's annual nickel production capacity by 164,000 tons per year.

The company's biggest capital spending project in Canada is the recently approved hydrometallurgical nickel refinery in Newfoundland, which will process nickel concentrate from Voisey's Bay that is now being shipped to Sudbury and Thompson, Man., for conventional smelting.

CVRD will allocate $110 million for the Newfoundland refinery in 2008, and expects to spend a total of $2.2 billion during the four years it will take to build and commission it.

The $2.5 billion CVRD plans to spend supporting existing operations "is explained by the growth in the asset base and the need to increase significantly investments in the Canadian nickel operations, which had received little investment in the past," the company stated in a news release last week.

Just over $1 billion will be spent on supporting existing nickel operations, but no details were provided.

In addition to reaffirming its capital spending plans for Totten Mine, CVRD will continue to fund studies now underway for the proposed Copper Cliff Deep and Creighton Deep projects, said Angie Robson, CVRD Inco's manager of external relations for Ontario operations.

"Though they're not specifically mentioned (in the news release), there are a...