Bulls and Bears Diverge in High-Grade NPI Market as Futures Rally Boosts Spot Prices

Canada has approved Canada Nickel Company’s Crawford Nickel Project in Ontario, clearing a key regulatory hurdle ahead of construction. The company targets a final investment decision (FID) in 2027, with the project requiring around CAD 5 billion (US$3.6 billion) investment, a 41-year mine life, and 240,000 t/day ore processing capacity. Crawford is expected to become the largest nickel sulphide project in the Western world and North America’s only primary chromium source, supporting critical supply chains for batteries, stainless steel and defense industries. We believe the approval is bullish for the long-term Western nickel supply chain, providing a potential low-carbon nickel alternative for Western countries.

[SMM Nickel Express] August 4 – The SMM high-grade NPI market sentiment index stood at 2.01, up 0.03 MoM. The upstream sentiment index for high-grade NPI was 2.09, up 0.05 MoM, and the downstream sentiment index for high-grade NPI was 1.92, flat MoM.

The European Commission quietly published Correcting Regulation (EU) 2026/1740 on July 31, correcting technical errors in the CBAM default values published on December 31, 2025 — seven months after companies first raised complaints — with no press release and only a hidden note in the Official Journal. Critics note that despite ongoing errors and logical inconsistencies, DG TAXUD maintained that compliance obligations remained in force regardless, effectively making companies pay for official mistakes. The next substantive review of CBAM default values is scheduled by December 2027. Separately, a new PwC study concludes that in every modelled scenario, neither the blast furnace nor the DRI route for European primary steel production is economically viable beyond 2040, with green hydrogen availability critically insufficient — Salzgitter and Saarstahl have secured only 5–6% of annual requirements, while other major producers have abandoned decarbonisation plans entirely. PwC recommends that if European steel capacity is retained for security of supply reasons, scrap-based secondary steel production is the only economically viable basis for doing so.