Partnerships built to last
International nickel customers, tribes and companies of New Caledonia, industry institutions: for more than forty years, Groupe MAI has been building relationships of trust that last.
Our international customers and partners
The group's ore is shipped to four markets: Japan, South Korea, China and Australia. In New Caledonia, it also supplies the Doniambo plant. In 2024, 215,000 tonnes were exported to China and Korea; in 2025, export authorisations were raised to 450,000 tonnes.
- Pamco (Japan): a ten-year contract signed in 2013, covering 250,000 tonnes of saprolite a year, the largest the company has ever concluded. It has been renewed until April 2035.
- Glencore: a commercial partner of the group, with an export authorisation renewed in 2025 and valid until January 2031.
- POSCO NMC (South Korea): saprolite deliveries.
- QNi (Australia): a customer for the group's laterite; SMP's first shipments were heading to Australia as early as the end of 2000.
- SLN (Eramet group): a twofold partnership. Since 2000, SMP has operated the Poro mining site on behalf of SLN under a contract-mining agreement renewed for more than twenty years. SLN is also a customer of MKM, which delivers saprolite to the Doniambo plant.
Our local and customary partners
The group's success rests on the communities living close to its sites. This conviction, present from the very beginnings of the family business, translates into concrete partnerships with the tribes, local companies and communes.
- Wakondé: a company created by MKM with the communities of the Saint-Louis and Ouen Island tribes, from whom most of its shareholders come. It handles the loading of the ore carriers and mobilises ten to fifteen casual jobs for each operation.
- Pernod Nickel (formerly NMO Nickel), holder of the global haulage contract: thirteen independent hauliers have worked alongside MKM on the N'Go Bay mines since 2010. The growth of the business has enabled the creation of several haulage companies.
- The communes: in 2019, MKM signed an agreement with the commune of Mont-Dore for the upkeep of a section of the route du Sud.
An organised industry: the SIM and C'Nickel
MKM is a member of the Syndicat des industries de la mine (SIM), created in 1989, which brings together the nine nickel companies of New Caledonia. Wilfrid Mai chaired it from 2013 to 2024, re-elected in 2016 and then in 2020. On his death, the union paid tribute to "an emblematic figure of the mining sector" (SIM statement, October 2024).
In February 2026, the SIM launched C'Nickel, an educational campaign aimed at the general public. The cnickel.nc platform explains the industry in simple terms, from administrative authorisations to the extraction and processing of the ore, through short video clips and downloadable fact sheets. The group is fully committed to this drive for transparency.
The training of mining professionals is also part of these commitments. In 2006, SMP was a partner of the graduation ceremony at the Poro training centre (CFTMC): 42 machine operators graduated, 19 of them women.
