China's imports of refined nickel have fallen to levels last seen almost 20 years ago, when the country's build-out of industrial capacity was still in its infancy.
The country's stainless steel mills now prefer nickel pig iron , an intermediate form of the metal that was rediscovered when the nickel price spiked to $51,800 per tonne in 2007. The largest supplier is Indonesia.
The country's hunger for this type of nickel peaked at 371,000 tonnes in 2016 on the back of a surge in Russian imports after the Shanghai Futures Exchange included Norilsk Nickel as a deliverable brand. China's export numbers include both outright exports and shipments of untaxed metal sitting in bonded warehouses and it's quite possible this year's outbound flows were simply warehouse turn-around trades.
Demand for refined metal has been reflecting in falling London Metal Exchange stocks, which at 38,916 tonnes are at their lowest level since 2006. The flow of Indonesian nickel matte to China only started in early 2022 but has so far this year mushroomed to 69,000 tonnes.
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