On March 13, the SMM average price of battery-grade nickel sulphate edged up slightly.
Cost side, nickel prices were jointly affected by the Middle East situation and news of production suspensions at Indonesian HPAL projects. Today, nickel prices retreated after a rapid rise, and the immediate production cost of nickel sulphate rebounded slightly; supply side, MHP payables have recently shown an upward trend, and quotations from nickel salt smelters were lifted somewhat on expectations of potential cost increases caused by raw material uncertainty; demand side, some producers made purchases recently, but as downstream orders remained unclear and cost pass-through to the downstream was sluggish, they still mainly adopted a wait-and-see attitude toward high-priced nickel salt. Today, the upstream nickel salt smelter Willingness to Sell Sentiment Factor was 1.8, the downstream precursor plant purchasing sentiment factor was 2.7, and the integrated enterprise sentiment factor was 2.3 (historical data is available in the database).
Looking ahead, market buying and selling sentiment is expected to rebound in March, and attention should be paid to the support from nickel prices and intermediate product supply, from the cost side, for nickel sulphate prices.
[For more content, please subscribe to SMM Nickel Research Group products China Nickel-Chrome-Stainless Steel Industry Chain Regular Report and China Nickel-Chrome-Stainless Steel Industry Chain High-End Report to access the latest data analysis and market interpretation on nickel ore, NPI (China + Indonesia), refined nickel, nickel sulphate, chrome ore, ferrochrome, and stainless steel (China + Indonesia)!]
