Abstract: An extraction process for nickel, easily reducible as an alloy or in pure state, starting from an ore which contains nickel in a small amount simultaneously with large quantities of other less reducible metals, the extraction being achieved by heating the ore and a reducing mass to a high temperature, the reducing mass being provided by a quantity of the reducer, calculated so as to reduce the totality of the nickel, the cobalt present if any, and a small part of another reducible constituent such as iron present in the ore, being dispersed, or dissolved, in a quantity of matter wherein the volume of the reducer is present in a charge of the reducible substance in a ratio of about 1:3.