Bought shares of Talvivaara Mining Company

This week I added a new stock to our portfolio: Talvivaara Mining Company. Talvivaara is listed in Helsinki and London stock exchanges. I had to let go of some of my gold for this, but I think this mine has far more potential / inflation protection than gold in itself.

Some facts (source: Talvivaara web site):

• Talvivaara Mining Company Plc. has an open-pit Nickel mine in Sotkamo, Finland.
• Production at the mine started in October 2008.
• Production ramp up is still ongoing.
• The planned annual nickel production of 50,000 tonnes is anticipated to be reached in 2012 (intermediate target: 30,000 tpa 2011).
• As by-products the mine will also produce aprox. 90,000 tpa of zinc, aprox.15,000 tpa of copper and c.1,800 tpa of cobalt.
• Also uranium can be extracted profitably from the ore if Finnish state gives OK for this
• The Talvivaara polymetallic deposits, Kuusilampi and Kolmisoppi, comprise one of the largest known sulphide nickel resources in Europe with 1121 million tonnes of ore in measured and indicated categories, sufficient to support an anticipated production for at 46 years.
• Talvivaara use a process called "bioheapleaching" to extract the metals from ore.
• Excellent near-mine exploration potential

I am working on an analysis of Talvivaara which I plan to publish later on.