SHANGHAI, Aug 9 (SMM) - China’s output of nickel sulphate was 30,000 mt in metal content in July, or 136,200 mt in physical content, up 10.8% on the month and up 23.7% on the year. In July, the output of battery-grade nickel sulphate increased significantly. As the profits of MHP production was good, some enterprises chose to produce MHP and some cobalt sulphate enterprises indicated that they may transferred to produce nickel sulphate with MHP in the future. In terms of of raw materials, the proportion of nickel sulphate produced with high-grade nickel matte was about 20%, the proportion of hydrometallurgy intermediate products stood at 51%, and the proportion of nickel briquette was about 2%. The rest was produced by scrap and crude nickel In July, the inventory of battery-grade nickel sulphate further declined, and the supply for retail transactions further tightened. Therefore, the prices rebounded slightly and profits expanded. In this scenario, salt factories were more willing to produce.

In August, integrated manufactures will continue to release the new capacity and the operating rates of some companies that reduced and suspended the production increased. Therefore, the output in August is expected to increase by 4.1% on the month and 10.7% on the year due to the considerable profits. However, as the current MHP capacity is unlikely to increase significantly, the output increase in August may be mainly reflected in the high-grade nickel matte production line.