An international conference on the nickel industry gets under way in New Caledonia today.
Some 2-hundred and 50 representatives from business, politics and academia will convene to discuss the latest extraction technologies.
New Caledonia has a quarter of the world's nickel reserves and the world's largest producer of the metal - the Canadian firm Inco - hopes to reopen the Goro project in the south of the territory.
The Canadian firm Falconbridge and the local firm SMSP is finalising a financial feasibility study for a potential plant on the Koniambo massif in the north of New Caledonia.
