【4.18 Morning Meeting Minutes】In the short term, the domestic trade premium for nickel ore remained stable, with strong cost support for smelters, while production remained steady despite declining profits. Demand side, stainless steel prices recently experienced a significant decline, with weak market purchasing sentiment and subdued raw material procurement demand from stainless steel mills. In the short term, high-grade NPI prices continued to face downward pressure.

On April 17, the SMM battery-grade nickel sulphate index price was 27,757 yuan/mt, with the quotation range for battery-grade nickel sulphate at 27,750-28,350 yuan/mt, and the average price decreased compared to the previous day.

【4.17 Morning Meeting Minutes】Following the announcement of Trump's tariff policy, nickel prices experienced a significant decline, and domestic NPI prices fell within the week, leading to reduced acceptance of high-priced nickel ore. From an inventory perspective, the in-plant inventory of domestic nickel iron factories remained relatively low, and just-in-time procurement demand persisted, but the acceptance of nickel ore prices was limited.

【4.16 Morning Meeting Minutes】Currently, domestic smelters maintain low nickel ore inventory, coupled with declining smelter profits. Some enterprises are still in the maintenance period, and overall production remains at a low level. In Indonesia, the short-term domestic trade premium for nickel ore remains stable. The policy of increasing tax rates on nickel ore in Indonesia is expected to be strong, providing strong cost support for smelters. Meanwhile, production remains stable despite declining profits.

【4.15 Morning Meeting Minutes】Due to the reduction of high-grade nickel in Indonesia, the market demand for MHP increased, driving the continuous rise of the MHP coefficient. Recent floods in Indonesia led to a decrease in MHP supply, further pushing up the MHP quotation coefficient. On the LME nickel front, prices continued to decline recently due to US tariff policies. The overall production costs of nickel salt smelters pulled back. Supply side, this week, based on reduced production costs, some nickel salt smelters lowered their quotations.

【4.11 Morning Meeting Minutes】While the US further intensified its tariff policy against China, it announced a 90-day suspension of the policy to increase tariffs on other countries. This move significantly improved the market sentiment in the LME, which in turn led to a rebound in the domestic stainless steel futures market after the daytime session opened. In the spot market, some low-priced cargoes that existed in the morning basically disappeared as the futures market rebounded, and prices stabilized accordingly.