SHANGHAI, Jul 29 (SMM) - As of July 29, port inventories of nickel ore in China increased by 774,000 wmt to 6.359 million wmt compared with last week. The total Ni content stood at 50,000 mt. The port inventory of nickel ore across seven major Chinese ports stood at 3.168 million wmt, 424,000 wmt higher than last week. The nickel ore inventory grew slowly, while the inventory at Lanshan Port and Lianyungang Port rose sharply. At present, the domestic NPI market is sluggish, hence the demand for nickel ore is relatively poor, putting huge downward pressure on the ore prices. At the same time, the high ocean freight continued to squeeze the profit margin of the mines, resulting in the mines' poor willingness to ship. It is expected that the short-term port inventory of nickel ore will continue to rise slowly. Due to the insufficient upstream shipments and the poor downstream demand, the short-term port inventory and import volume of nickel ore will be lower than in the same period last year.