Qualla: Nickel mining in Western Australia https://qualla.com/nickel-mining-in-western-australia en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:26 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/q/e/j/t/nickel-mining-in-western-australia-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Nickel mining in Western Australia https://qualla.com/nickel-mining-in-western-australia Nickel mining in Western Australia: Introduction https://qualla.com/nickel-mining-in-western-australia/ Photo credit Calistemon, CC BY-SA 4.0. In late 1969, a single nickel discovery sent ordinary Australians into a frenzy. Shares in a small explorer called Poseidon NL had been trading at eighty cents; within months they touched an intraday high of $280, dragging the whole stock market up behind them in a speculative mania that ended, as manias do, in ruin. The metal at the centre of it all - silvery, hard, corrosion-resistant nickel - sleeps beneath the red plains of the Western Australian outback, in some of the oldest and most mineral-rich rock on Earth. The industry that grew up to extract it has lurched between euphoria and collapse for more than half a century, and the empty pits and quiet smelters scattered across the Goldfields are the receipts.

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Image: Calistemon | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/q/e/j/t/nickel-mining-in-western-australia-wp/qejt-nickel-mining-in-western-australia-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Nickel mining in Western Australia: Born in 1966, Near a Salt Lake https://qualla.com/nickel-mining-in-western-australia/ Photo credit Earth Science and Remote Sensing Unit, Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center, Public domain. The modern industry begins at Kambalda, south of Kalgoorlie, where Western Mining Corporation found nickel sulphide in 1966 and began production in 1968. The timing was extraordinary. The Vietnam War had driven nickel demand to record highs, and a long strike against the dominant...

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Image: Earth Science and Remote Sensing Unit, Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center | Public domain

]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/q/e/j/t/nickel-mining-in-western-australia-wp/qejt-nickel-mining-in-western-australia-born-in-1966-near-a-salt-lake.mp3 0:06 2 full Nickel mining in Western Australia: The Bubble That Burst https://qualla.com/nickel-mining-in-western-australia/ Photo credit Earth Science and Remote Sensing Unit, Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center, Public domain. Into that fevered market stepped Poseidon NL, which in September 1969 reported promising nickel results at Mount Windarra, 22 kilometres northwest of Laverton. Word leaked, insiders bought, and the share price detonated. Investors who had never seen a drill core poured savings in...

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Image: Earth Science and Remote Sensing Unit, Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center | Public domain

]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/q/e/j/t/nickel-mining-in-western-australia-wp/qejt-nickel-mining-in-western-australia-the-bubble-that-burst.mp3 0:06 3 full Nickel mining in Western Australia: The Human Cost Underground https://qualla.com/nickel-mining-in-western-australia/ Photo credit Earth Science and Remote Sensing Unit, Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center, Public domain. Behind the share charts were people who did dangerous work in difficult places, and some did not come home. During the development of the Leinster mine in April 1977, five workers fell 35 metres in an ore bucket at the Perseverance shaft and died. A cave-in killed a man in 1981; ...

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Image: Earth Science and Remote Sensing Unit, Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center | Public domain

]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/q/e/j/t/nickel-mining-in-western-australia-wp/qejt-nickel-mining-in-western-australia-the-human-cost-underground.mp3 0:06 4 full Nickel mining in Western Australia: The Debt the Land Keeps https://qualla.com/nickel-mining-in-western-australia/ Photo credit Earth Science and Remote Sensing Unit, Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center, Public domain. Nickel leaves a long environmental tail. The Bulong mine near Kalgoorlie operated for just five years, from 1998 to 2003, yet by 2016 its cleanup was projected to cost as much as $6.8 million - against a rehabilitation bond of only $1.1 million from its former owners. Abandoned t...

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Image: Earth Science and Remote Sensing Unit, Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center | Public domain

]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/q/e/j/t/nickel-mining-in-western-australia-wp/qejt-nickel-mining-in-western-australia-the-debt-the-land-keeps.mp3 0:06 5 full Nickel mining in Western Australia: Battery Dreams, Then the Bust Again https://qualla.com/nickel-mining-in-western-australia/ Photo credit Earth Science and Remote Sensing Unit, Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center, Public domain. For a few years it looked different. Nickel is essential to the lithium-ion batteries powering electric vehicles, and a green-energy boom promised the Goldfields a clean second act. Then Indonesia flooded the market with vast quantities of cheaper nickel, and prices collapsed in ...

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Image: Earth Science and Remote Sensing Unit, Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center | Public domain

]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/q/e/j/t/nickel-mining-in-western-australia-wp/qejt-nickel-mining-in-western-australia-battery-dreams-then-the-bust-again.mp3 0:06 6 full