Although Qingshan high matte nickel was put into production late, why is the reaction of nickel so slow? [agency Review]

According to the official account of Qingshan Industry, 08:08 on December 8, the fiery red low nickel matte hot metal was steadily added to the converter of the department of nickel matte following the instructions of the leader. After more than seven hours of blowing, the qualified high nickel matte hot metal was produced at 15:38, which started the journey for the formal production of high nickel matte in the Castle Peak Industrial Park in Indonesia.

As early as March 1, Qingshan Industries signed a high matte supply agreement with Huayou Cobalt and Zhongwei. The three parties jointly agreed that Qingshan will supply 60,000 tons of high matte to Huayou Cobalt within one year from October 2021, and 40,000 tons of high matte to Zhongwei. The news caused a sharp fall in the price of nickel, which fell to the limit continuously, mainly because the tight supply of nickel sulfate caused by the strong demand for new energy was the main factor driving up the price of nickel, and high nickel matte is one of the raw materials of nickel sulfate. the continued tension of nickel sulfate has been alleviated by the expectation that production will be stabilized in the future. However, Qingshan high matte nickel production news is obviously late, during the period of new energy demand continues to improve, pure nickel explicit inventory is low, the superimposed market atmosphere is optimistic, nickel futures refresh the previous listing high, and futures prices continue to be strong and volatile.

At the beginning of March, the news that high nickel matte will be put into production in the second half of the year has had a great impact on the price of nickel. The market for the future high production of nickel ice makes the supply side of nickel sulfate more abundant, which will crowd out some of the applications of primary nickel. And the actual production time has been delayed compared with the previously agreed October, the superimposed short-term production is difficult to increase rapidly, under the background that the production and sales of new energy vehicles continue to be exuberant, while the supply of wet intermediate products is relatively limited, at present, the proportion of consumption of nickel beans and nickel powder is difficult to decline. Therefore, after the news landed, the price of nickel did not fall significantly, although weak and volatile, but still hovered in the high range. Further attention should be paid to the output rhythm of high nickel matte and the extrusion effect of nickel bean / nickel powder in the nickel sulfate-new energy industry chain.

However, it can be seen that although the current supply and demand of pure nickel is tight and inventory is low, there are signs of marginal weakening in downstream demand. On the one hand, the price of stainless steel on the maximum demand side is very weak, the production profit is not good, superimposed year-end maintenance behavior, the pull of nickel demand is expected to be very limited. On the other hand, recently, the price of nickel sulfate is also relatively weak, but the price of nickel is still high, and the economy of autolysis of nickel bean is obviously weakened.