On July 6, the SMM battery-grade nickel sulphate average price declined.
Cost side, nickel prices gradually started to consolidate, weighed down by their own inventory and rate hike expectations, with spot production costs of nickel sulphate consolidating at lows; supply side, the tight supply of intermediate products remained unchanged, MHP payables and auxiliary material prices such as sulphuric acid stayed high, and nickel salt smelters kept their offers elevated, though some enterprises released low-cost inventories; demand side, as nickel prices fell sharply MoM, combined with inventory accumulation at some downstream enterprises, the sentiment to build stocks downstream was weak, and acceptance of nickel salt prices was relatively low. Today, the Willingness to Sell Sentiment Factor for upstream nickel salt smelters was 1.8, the Procurement Sentiment Factor for downstream precursor plants was 2.5, and the Integrated Enterprises Sentiment Factor was 2.4 (historical data available in the database).
Looking ahead, the stockpiling period in July is expected to shift to the latter half of the month, and attention should be paid to the impact of nickel prices and intermediate products on cost support.
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