On a remote island in the Pacific Ocean, mine owners like Glencore Plc and Vale SA are losing money on every ton of nickel they unearth in what amounts to a contest to see who can endure the agony longer, Bloomberg reported. A prolonged surplus of nickel has sent prices plunging to a 12-year low and below the cost of production for more than two-thirds of the world’s mines. Nowhere is the strain more acute than in New Caledonia, a former Napoleonic penal colony 1,000 miles from Australia’s eastern coast that drew billions of dollars in investment when the metal reached a record before the financial crisis.
