Sunday, November 9, 2008

Liberty forced to close

Liberty mines (LBE) announced on Friday that they will be putting their Timmins area nickel mines on care and maintenance. This is a tough place for them to be, another one of those new producers who got a couple mines started right in the thick of record nickel prices. Still dealing with development and start up debt, they needed financing to keep them going, once they realized that wasn't going to happen they were forced to do what many others have done lately and that's go on care and maintenance.

I don't expect this one to be doing anything spectacular for a while, even when nickel prices recover they will be dealing with their debt for a long time, they're not a very attractive company at the moment.

Best of luck to all the workers who got laid off. There's still a shortage of skilled men in the industry.

2 comments:

cool d said...

Good day, UI..do you see Liberty getting swallowed up by a bigger fish..(like Xstrata)..I mean Liberty's probably got the nearest mill around there, and Montcalm isn't all that far away, hmmm?

cool d

underground monster said...

Liberty has come out and said that they are looking for a partner or takeover, they can't operate by themselves and are knee deep in debt, tough spot to be. Xstrata is just down the street, but they're not in any rush to grab anything, especially not any fixer-uppers.

Time will tell, but I think Liberty will be picked up, they still have good assets, but whoever does get them will get them at firesale prices.