Nickel price crash seen extending Indonesia’s grip on supply

• Tuesday, January 23, 2024
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[Ferro-Alloys.com] 

Nickel price crash seen extending Indonesia’s grip on supply

A prolonged slump in nickel prices is stress-testing producers worldwide, raising the prospect of sweeping mine closures that will deepen Indonesia’s dominance of global supply.

 

The metal used in stainless steel and electric-vehicle batteries is down more than 40% from a year ago amid a growing global glut. That’s piling pressure on higher-cost operations and could pose the greatest risk to new projects outside Indonesia.

 

Production in Indonesia — which already accounts for half of global supply — may prove more resistant to output cuts. The Southeast Asian nation has emerged as a global nickel hub after billions of dollars of investment in efficient plants that benefit from inexpensive labor, cheap power and readily available raw materials.

 

“Indonesian projects are more flexible in absorbing the impacts of lower nickel prices,” said Allan Ray Restauro, an analyst at BloombergNEF. That means overall global supply will keep rising despite output curbs elsewhere, he said.

Source: MINING.COM

 

 

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