China Sees Another Surge in Refined Nickel Imports

Platts reported that in June, China’s refined nickel imports came to a total of 38,545 metric tons, up 250 percent from the previous year. That surge continued in July, with the Asian nation bringing in 46,362 metric tons of refined nickel. That’s up 20 percent from the previous month, and 162 percent year-on-year.
As quoted in the market news:

In June, we believed the China increase was partly due to the registration of  three nickel brands by Norilsk Nickel for delivery against the Shanghai Futures Exchange nickel contract that was launched in March. We noted that participants had been shipping Russian material to China in advance of the Norilsk registration in June, and this is confirmed by the graph above, which shows imports of Russian refined nickel to China make up a large proportion of China’s total refined nickel imports.
China’s imports of ferronickel also remained high in July at 59,115 mt, down marginally on-month from 62,511 mt in June, but up 216% from 18,722 mt in July 2014. China also continued to import much of its nickel ore and concentrate from the Philippines in the continued absence of imports from Indonesia as a result of the country’s ban on nickel ore imports that has been in place since January 2014.
China imported 4.91 million mt of nickel ore and concentrate from the Philippines in July, up from 4.21 million mt in June, and down from  5.01 million mt in July 2014. As we also noted last month, the increase in ferronickel imports looks to be part of a move by China to continue to diversify its nickel imports in the absence of higher grade ore from Indonesia.

Click here to read the full Platts report.