Price trend

This week (1.11-1.17), the nickel market rebounded. According to the monitoring of nickel prices by SunSirs, on January 17th, spot nickel was quoted at 129,075 RMB/ton, with a weekly increase of 1.48%.

Analysis review

Macroscopically, China has released its 2024 economic report card, indicating that the country's economy was operating steadily with progress. The annual gross domestic product was 134,908.4 billion RMB, an increase of 5.0% over the previous year. The total import and export volume of goods in 2024 was 43,846.8 billion RMB, an increase of 5.0% over the previous year. The market expected global economic growth and strong demand for industrial metals, boosting the upward trend of the market.

On the supply side: Indonesia has set the nickel mining quota for 2025 at around 200 million tons, which was 400 million tons less than in 2024. Lunding Mining stated that nickel production will gradually decrease over the next three years. As of January 21st, as the Spring Festival approaching, destocking was weak, and the electrolytic nickel market remains loose. On January 17th, the inventory of Shanghai nickel warehouse receipts was 27,558 tons, an increase of 100 tons during the week; On January 16th, LME nickel inventory was 167,994 tons, an increase of 3,684 tons during the week.

In terms of demand, factors such as the approaching Spring Festival and holiday arrangements have weakened the demand in the spot market. The demand for nickel in the fields of essential needs replenishment, alloys, batteries, stainless steel, etc. is expected to maintain growth, but overall activity is still limited.

Market outlook

There was still resistance to the upward movement of nickel prices under inventory pressure, but with production control in the mining sector and expectations of global economic recovery, it is expected that nickel prices may experience range fluctuations to be stronger.

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