Amid rising cash flow, Sherritt plans 20% boost of nickel output

CUBA STANDARD — In what company CEO Leon Binedell hailed as “the best financial metrics since 2014,” Sherritt International Corp. posted a CDN$16.4 million profit on nearly doubled revenues in the first quarter, a turnaround from a net loss of CDN$1.9 million in the same quarter last year.

The Toronto-based mining and energy company — Cuba’s largest foreign investor — is seeing a boost to its bottom line thanks mainly to rising nickel prices, up nearly 50% from a year ago. Cuba sits on the world’s fourth-largest reserves of the metal, a key ingredient for battery production, while recent sanctions turned Russia — the third-largest nickel producer — off limits for most of the western world.