【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.

Since the continuous rise in nickel sulfate prices after the holiday, nickel sulfate has become the focus of attention in the nickel industry chain recently, so what is the specific reason befind it? In a word, the supply and demand of nickel sulfate finished products are tighter than raw materials, making the price of nickel sulfate rise faster than raw materials in the near future. We analyze the finished product and the raw material side separately.

More than 2,000 tons of Nickel Matte! The first batch of Nickel Matte in CNGR Morowali Industrial Base arrived at Qinzhou Port

[SMM Commentary: Global Pure Nickel Inventories Accumulate Nickel Prices Fall All the Way in 2023] The temporary recovery in demand in the fourth quarter of 2022 lasted until the beginning of 2023, but the weak demand throughout the year made nickel prices start a downward mode after the peak of the year in 2023...

At the 2023 SMM Indonesia Nickel and Cobalt Industry Chain Conference hosted by SMM in Jakarta, Indonesia, Shirley Wang, GM of SMM New Energy Research Department shared her view on the forecast of supply and demand of the global nickel-cobalt market.