Singapore 19/02/2016 - Mirabela Nickel will place its Santa Rita nickel mine in Bahia, Brazil on care and maintenance, said the Australia-listed nickel producer on Friday morning.
The care and maintenance program will commence immediately and will be implemented over a period of 4-8 weeks, it said.
Mirabela is taking the action due to further declines in nickel price, difficulties in obtaining additional funding and unsustainable levels of cash outflows from Mirabela Mineração do Brasil Ltda (MMB) - Mirabela's wholly-owned subsidiary which operates the mine.
Mirabela had started cutting production at the mine by 33 percent since October last year due to falling nickel prices.
The reduction was to help the company manage the operations at as close to breakeven cash position as possible over a 15-month period from October 2015 till December 2016, it had said then.
Following the cut, MMB produced around 16,110 tonnes of nickel contained in concentrate in 2015.
It later said in January that it was further refining its production cut plans and expect to produce 11,000-12,500 tonnes of nickel in 2016.
MMB had a normalised free cash balance of around $8.4 million as at December 31, 2015.
Mirabela was placed under voluntary administration on September 24 last year.
The London Metal Exchange nickel price was last at $8,310 per tonne on Friday - down $40 from its Thursday close - after falling to $7,550 last week, its lowest in 13 years.