[SMM Weekly report selected] Primary Nickel supply and demand balance: consumer side improvement Q2 domestic supply and demand balance is obviously optimized

Published: May 16, 2020 10:29

"SMM Nickel Industry chain Weekly report" is released. SMM will select hot topics, prices, quotations or major changes in the industry chain and release information for your reference.

The following is an excerpt from the weekly report of the SMM nickel industry chain:

There is a lack of bright spots in the market this week, the weakening of nickel prices is contrary to the strong trading direction of nickel pig iron, and the spot consumption of nickel is not very optimistic, and there is still no obvious accumulation, mainly because the import volume is less than expected. under the weak supply and demand, the price trend lags behind the nickel pig iron with better fundamentals; compared with pure nickel, the performance of nickel pig iron is better, the transaction price and volume have improved, and the role of positive feedback in the industrial chain continues. In addition, although some Indonesian mining industry operators speculated during the week whether Indonesia would re-export nickel ore, according to the normal logic of reading its documents, there was no sign of re-opening nickel ore exports. Under the interweaving of long and short positions, the trend of nickel prices continued to fluctuate in the range.

In 2020, the apparent consumption of domestic primary nickel in Q2 was 336500 tons, which was 3% lower than the previous year and the same period last year. Although the import of ferronickel has increased astonishingly, at the same time, the domestic output of nickel salt and the volume of nickel pig iron are significantly declining, and the import of Q2 in nickel spot will still be in a low position, slightly better than Q1, but much lower than last year. Compared with Q1 and Q2, the net import of nickel and iron was basically flat and normal, while the domestic output of nickel pig iron decreased obviously. The output of nickel salt in Q2 is lower than that in Q1, which is mainly due to the decline in the consumption of new energy batteries.

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Catalogue of "SMM Nickel Industry chain Weekly report" in this issue

Main points of this issue's weekly report

Balance of supply and demand of primary nickel: improvement of consumer side Q2 obvious optimization of supply and demand balance of primary nickel in China

Nickel pig iron: the national output of nickel pig iron decreased by 4.49% month-on-month in April, down 19.91% from the same period last year.

Stainless steel: the national output of 300 series stainless steel increased by 126000 tons to 1.131 million tons in April compared with the previous month.

Pure nickel: the national output of 14400 tons in April has little change in the production and completion of each electrolytic nickel home.

Nickel sulfate: China's nickel sulfate production decreased in April compared with the same period last year, and will continue to decrease in May compared with the same period last year.

High-carbon ferrochromium: in April, China's high-carbon ferrochromium decreased 26.97% compared with the same period last year, and the profits of high-level ferrochromium mills are under pressure.

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[China Nickel Industry chain High-end report] China Nickel Industry chain monthly report includes macro interpretation, monthly review of nickel price, interpretation of hot events and future forecasts in various sections of the nickel industry chain (nickel ore, electrolytic nickel, nickel pig iron, stainless steel, ferrochromium). And release monthly relevant enterprise operating rate and inventory survey and other data, covering the entire nickel industry chain.

[China Nickel Industry chain routine report] China Nickel Industry chain Weekly report includes macro interpretation, weekly review of nickel price, market trends of various sections of nickel industry chain (electrolytic nickel, nickel pig iron, stainless steel, ferrochromium), weekly social inventory, future forecast, comprehensive interpretation of the nickel market in the week.

Data Source Statement: Except for publicly available information, all other data are processed by SMM based on publicly available information, market communication, and relying on SMM‘s internal database model. They are for reference only and do not constitute decision-making recommendations.

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