1. Continued decline in refined nickel stocks.
Due to the rapid development of new energy vehicles, the market is very optimistic about the application of ternary materials with high nickel content in the future. This has led to a sharp rise in demand for Ni sulfate, especially Ni sulfate’s high premium to the metal, which has attracted the attention of nickel industry giants. For example, BHP plans to produce Ni sulfate in Australia, and Norilsk has signed a partnership agreement with BASF to expand Ni sulfate production. In the country, Jinchuan Group also intends to reduce metallic nickel production and increase Ni sulfate production. In addition, private companies such as Tianjin Maolian, Yantai Keshi and other private companies also plan to stop producing nickel metal to produce nickel sulfate.
However, like most of the companies mentioned above, they switch to production by smelting intermediate products for the production of nickel sulfate. In the context of limited supply of intermediate products due to a lack of potential new nickel sulphide ore resources, there are also some companies choosing to use refined nickel stocks for sulphate production. In particular, stocks of nickel grains on LME stocks were down almost 21,000 tonnes from the end of January on Friday, of which 19,000 tonnes were nickel grains. In addition, China’s 2018 refined nickel import tariff modification has also promoted import demand from domestic companies, especially Australia and Madagascar, the major grain nickel producers and enjoy a zero MFN tax rate. Australia’s imports increased in November 2017, reaching 10,000 tonnes in December and 8,519 tonnes in January, an increase of 930,000 tonnes from the previous year. With the gradual consumption of nickel grains in the future, the long-term accumulation pattern of nickel grains in the world will be changed.
2. Ni-Fe substitution effect is prominent.
PT Sulawesi Mining Investment approved a nickel export quota of 6 million wet tons, the company is a joint venture between Ding Xin Group and Indonesia’s Eight Star Group. So far, Indonesia has approved a total of 34.39m wet tons of nickel ore quotas, with further quota approvals to come in the future. Indonesia exported only 4.33 million wet tons last year, which means that Indonesia’s nickel exports are expected to exceed 30 million wet tons in 2018.
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