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To: WALT REISCH who wrote (2340)	9/22/1998 9:50:00 AM
From: WALT REISCH	Respond to of 8393

Inco to commission new nickel plant in Wales Reuters Story - September 22, 1998 09:43 By Camila Reed PRAGUE, Sept 22 (Reuters) - Canadian nickel producer, Inco , will commission a nickel foam plant at its Clydach refinery in Wales by year-end, Victor Ettel, director of product research, Inco, told Reuters at an industry conference on Tuesday. "Commercial sales will begin next year...and we have already decided to proceed quickly with a further expansion of the facility in 1999," Ettel said. The new plant will be bigger than Inco's existing foam plant at the company's North American nickel refinery. The added value nickel foam product is used in nickel-cadmium and nickel-metal-hydride batteries which power phones, tools, emergency lighting and computers. Eettel said there had been record global demand for small rechargeable cells in 1997. Nickel-cadmium battery cells were still growing at 10 percent a year and in 1997 around 1.7 billion Watt-hours of capacity was produced, he told delegates at the International Cadmium Association conference in Prague. Nickel-metal-hydride and lithium-ion battery production was growing at around 300 million Watt-hours a year, he added. "One important area to emerge in the near future is the electrically assisted transportation market. Nickel-cadmium batteries seem to be emerging as the leader for these large hybrid buses and power assisted bicycles," Eettel said. Inco was developing another specialised nickel product, battery grade nickel hydroxide for use in electric vehicels. "A 500 kilo a day pilot plant was built recently and is currently being started up," he said. "We expect semi-commercial quantities of our hydroxide to become available before the end of this year," he added. London Newsroom, +44 171 542 7771