Vale Base Metals is leaning toward selling Vale Manitoba Operations.

The global nickel and copper miner announced yesterday that it’s launching a strategic review of its northern Manitoba asset to consider all options, including a potential sale of the mine and its 250-acre exploration property,

Vale Base Metals said it’s reviewing the competitiveness of its entire mining portfolio in Manitoba, Ontario, Newfoundland-Labrador, Indonesia, Brazil, the United Kingdom and Japan.

The company has an eye to devote more resources into the growth of copper at its Carajas iron ore mine in northern Brazil.

A report from an undisclosed external advisor, hired to lead the Thompson review, is due out sometime during the middle of this year.

In pumping the tires of Thompson, Vale called it a proven nickel deposit with considerable upside over a 135-kilometre-long nickel belt. The former INCO made the ore body discovery in 1956 after extensively exploring northern Manitoba following the Second World War.

According to a news release, the Vale Manitoba produced 10.5 kilotonnes of the company's finished nickel for a 12-month period up to the third quarter of 2024.