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Forecasts and market analysis based on price assessments from Fastmarkets MB and Fastmarkets AMM

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January 2020 | Base Metals


Nickel: Could go either way


Since early December, LME nickel prices have been in the process of consolidating the sell-off that followed the September high. The consolidation is continuing amid technical, fundamental, macro and geopolitical cross currents. As such, while we still believe that the long-term direction for nickel prices is upward, the next direction in the short term is unclear and we think it would be unwise to be overly bullish at the moment.

Supply-side developments There were a few interesting news stories on nickel supply that emerged last week and that we think are worth examining here. They are examples of how the industry is responding to the outlook for rising demand and diminishing availability of class 1 nickel for Li-ion battery production. The Santa Rita mine in Bahia, Brazil (closed by Mirabela in 2016 and restarted by Atlantic Nickel in July 2019) is ramping up ahead of schedule. It has shipped its first concentrate (for class 1 refined nickel production) as part of a three-year offtake agreement with...

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