On August 20, the SMM battery-grade nickel sulphate index price was 27,408 yuan/mt, with the quotation range for battery-grade nickel sulphate between 27,430 and 27,790 yuan/mt; the average price increased from the previous day.
Cost side, the recent market was affected by both expectations for US Fed interest rate cuts and nickel's weak fundamentals, with LME nickel prices remaining low, leading to a pullback in immediate costs for nickel salt. Supply side, nickel salt smelters maintained low spot inventory levels, with few spot order quotations recently, and coupled with raw material cost pressure, smelters continued to refuse to budge on prices. Demand side, some precursor plants still had restocking needs recently, showing active inquiries and increased price acceptance. Today, the upstream nickel salt smelters' sales sentiment factor was 1.5, downstream precursor plants' purchasing sentiment factor was 3.0, and integrated enterprises' sentiment factor was 1.8 (historical data can be queried in the database).
Looking ahead, the nickel sulphate market's supply-demand pattern is expected to remain tight in the short term, and nickel salt prices are anticipated to rebound.
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