On December 16, the SMM battery-grade nickel sulphate index price was 27,181 yuan/mt, and the quotation range for battery-grade nickel sulphate was 27,430-27,530 yuan/mt, with the average price slightly lower than yesterday.
Cost side, LME nickel prices pulled back sharply yesterday, pressured by cautious global macro sentiment and its own weak fundamentals, leading to a decrease in the immediate production cost for nickel salt smelters; Supply side, raw material costs prompted some enterprises to have a tendency to raise quotations, but due to the recent weak nickel price performance and relatively weak downstream raw material demand, upstream efforts to hold prices firm have not yet translated into downstream acceptance; Demand side, as some producers still have raw material inventory, stockpiling sentiment for nickel salt was relatively sluggish recently, and transactions this month are expected to be scattered. Today, the upstream nickel salt smelter's Willingness to Sell Sentiment Factor was 1.9, the downstream precursor plant's Purchasing Sentiment Factor was 2.6, and the integrated enterprise sentiment factor was 2.6 (historical data can be queried by logging into the database).
Looking ahead, downstream demand pullback is expected to exert some pressure on prices; if nickel prices fall further, weakening cost support may lead to a decline in nickel sulphate prices.
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