Nickel prices were up on the London Metal Exchange (LME), despite concerns about demand from China. The future is driven by the energy transition with the increase in sales of electric vehicles.
Work on the plate for the southern nickel plant in New Caledonia. Prony Resources, which produces a sought-after nickel-cobalt intermediate mix for electric batteries, can slowly ramp up. Nickel prices have calmed down, but they remain high, close to 30,000 dollars per ton.
The New York Stock Exchange ended the week up on Friday, for the first time in two months, reassured on the eve of a long Memorial Day weekend by a reassuring inflation indicator in the United States.
On the world metals market, in London and Shanghai, doubts remain fueled by international tensions around the war in Ukraine, Korea and Taiwan.
“In addition to the fear of a drop in supply in Russia, concerns about Chinese demand are preventing a recovery in prices”, According to Barbara Lambrecht, an analyst at Commerzbank interviewed by AFP, China is a major consumer of industrial metals.
“In the medium term, however, the outlook for nickel demand remains very good”continues the analyst, the sales of electric cars having exploded in the world in 2021.
With 6.6 million units sold worldwide in 2021, half of them in China, sales of electric cars have doubled in one year and now represent 10% of new car sales, according to an annual report from the Agency. International Energy Agency (IEA) published on Monday.
Many metals such as nickel, lithium or even cobalt are essential for the manufacture of electric car batteries: they make it possible to limit their size. “Nickel is the metal that will benefit the most in the future: the share of global nickel demand represented by battery demand has already increased to 7% last year” compared to 4% the previous year”Mme Lambrecht signals.
On the LME, a ton of nickel for delivery in three months traded at 28,437 dollars (+4.56%) on Friday at the close against 27,973 dollars the previous Friday. Over the week, the increase is more modest: 1.66%.