Nickel is back!

[divs4ever]

lithium out of favor , is it ?

might revisit IGO ( for some research )

i had a nice run but exited when they sold their interest in Tropicana , maybe there is an interesting re-entry point

i hold OZL ( free-carried ) , MCR ( free-carried ) and PAN ( and WES for a little lithium exposure )

 

[qldfrog]

Nickel has been the war commodity for eon.no reason with Ukraine for it not to remain #1
The whole US and NATO stocks are being sent there to be exploded in a global warming attempt and needs to be replaced in their respective homes.
That plus EV,and copper looks like a poor cousin ..long life Nickel

 

[Sean K]

Solid long term uptrend since Feb 16. Disregard the short squeeze and it's a pretty sight. I thought 25,000 would have been nice to settle on with current producers and near developers reaping benefits. But, looks like 30,000 could be a new benchmark shortly if this trend continues. A couple of Ni explorers putting together feasibility studies will need to up their price assumptions I think making their projects look extremely valuable. For eg, CTM have 1Mt Ni in Jaguar. They might have been doing a DFS on 15-18K a ton for Ni, do they now make that 25K or even 30K as upside? At 30K that's $30b in the ground. They won't mine the entire resource of course, but even half of it, it's looking pretty good at these prices.

 

[houtman]

Nickel showing down US$9.5k on kitco atm.

Is this a glitch or just part of the LME’s demise?

A quick search didn’t find anything, .. think the best thing to do is finish beer and check in the am.

Nickel price seems to be wobbly of late.(based on nothing but the vibe)

 

[Sean K]

Nickel showing down US$9.5k on kitco atm.

Is this a glitch or just part of the LME’s demise?

A quick search didn’t find anything, .. think the best thing to do is finish beer and check in the am.

Nickel price seems to be wobbly of late.(based on nothing but the vibe)

Must have been a glitch in the matrix. Still around $28k.

 

[houtman]

Must have been a glitch in the matrix. Still around $28k.

View attachment 152099

Yeah, Must have been a glitch, 1st time attaching a photo, seems straight fwd.

 

[Sean K]

View attachment 152108
Yeah, Must have been a glitch, 1st time attaching a photo, seems straight fwd.

It can only be a glitch, although the short squeeze that pushed it to $100k was real and in very short time too. Not sure what would send it down so much for a short period of time.

Good work on the attachment.

 

[sptrawler]

Another reason why Australian suppliers are highly respected.

Trafigura faces $577 million loss on alleged nickel fraud

The company found that some cargoes it had bought didn't contain the nickel they were supposed to, and spent two months uncovering the scheme.

www.mining.com

Commodities trader Trafigura Group will take an almost half a billion dollars charge in first half of 2023, after discovering that some nickel cargoes it bought didn’t contain the metal they were supposed to.

The Geneva-based company said the “systematic fraud” was committed by a group of companies connected to and controlled by Indian businessman Prateek Gupta, including TMT Metals and companies owned by Gupta’s UD Trading Group.

“Since late December 2022, a small proportion of the containers purchased from these companies have been inspected as they reached their destination, and were found not to contain nickel,” it said in the statement. “The majority of the shipments remain in transit awaiting further inspection.”
Trafigura noted it had started legal action against Gupta and the involved companies, with which it had traded since 2015.
The $577 million impairment could end up being lower if the metals and energy trader is able to recover some funds.

 

[peter2]

Nickel seems out of favour at the moment. IGO,MCR, NIC being sold down.
Keep an eye on them. They'll be back.

 

[Dona Ferentes]

Nickel seems out of favour at the moment.

And the other side ....
Ban on export of ore, now 21 nickel smelters operating in Indonesia, industry boomed over the past two years in Indonesia, Chinese money, dodgy practices ... hmm

Nirwana posted videos of working in an Indonesian nickel mine nearly every day. They went viral after she died

As Indonesia pushes ahead with a plan to be the world's largest nickel producer for electric vehicle batteries, workers at smelter sites allege they face unsafe conditions, which sometimes can be fatal.

www.abc.net.au

 

[The Triangle]

I have worked with a lot of people over the years who will not do business with Indian companies.

Another reason why Australian suppliers are highly respected.

Trafigura faces $577 million loss on alleged nickel fraud

The company found that some cargoes it had bought didn't contain the nickel they were supposed to, and spent two months uncovering the scheme.

www.mining.com

Commodities trader Trafigura Group will take an almost half a billion dollars charge in first half of 2023, after discovering that some nickel cargoes it bought didn’t contain the metal they were supposed to.

The Geneva-based company said the “systematic fraud” was committed by a group of companies connected to and controlled by Indian businessman Prateek Gupta, including TMT Metals and companies owned by Gupta’s UD Trading Group.

“Since late December 2022, a small proportion of the containers purchased from these companies have been inspected as they reached their destination, and were found not to contain nickel,” it said in the statement. “The majority of the shipments remain in transit awaiting further inspection.”
Trafigura noted it had started legal action against Gupta and the involved companies, with which it had traded since 2015.
The $577 million impairment could end up being lower if the metals and energy trader is able to recover some funds.

Trafigura replaces nickel head following alleged fraud

Trafigura has named two new co-heads of its nickel, cobalt and lithium trading division, weeks after the commodity trader claimed it had fallen victim to a nickel fraud that could cost it US$577mn. GTR understands that Mehdi Wetterwald and Daniel von Arx will replace Socrates Economou, whose...

www.gtreview.com

Trafigura's nickel trading head just happens to be leaving this month.

 

[sptrawler]

Nickel is back.
Back in the dog house that is. ?

 

[Sean K]

Nickel is back.
Back in the dog house that is. ?

Indonesia ramped up supply last year creating a surplus but overall it's supposed to switch back to a deficit in the next 2 years. Indonesia is a bit of an anomaly at the moment with how they're dealing with their natural resources. I think they want to start developing much more downstream work instead of just posting their stuff to smelters and OEMs in China and watching the overall value disappear. Nickel exports are going to be banned soon. The other thing with Indonesian Ni is that it's laterite and needs much more CO2 to turn it into a product. Sulphide resources will have a distinct advantage in the next few years when UN put all sorts of pressure on high emitters. That's not to say Indonesia will care about that at all as a 'developing' country. They'll keep blurting CO2 out until their GDP per capita is closer to Australia's, which will be in about 2145.

 

[qldfrog]

And again

JPMorgan Chase thought it had $1.3 million worth of nickel stored in a warehouse. A closer examination revealed bags of stones.

The bank kept bags of stones in a Dutch warehouse thinking they were bags of nickel that would have been worth more than a million dollars.

www.businessinsider.com

 

[rcw1]

And again

JPMorgan Chase thought it had $1.3 million worth of nickel stored in a warehouse. A closer examination revealed bags of stones.

The bank kept bags of stones in a Dutch warehouse thinking they were bags of nickel that would have been worth more than a million dollars.

www.businessinsider.com

Bloody Nora ... coupla 25 ton trucks backed up against the warehouse, one ton rock or 1/2 ton rock bin off and one ton nickel / 1/2 ton nickel bin on...
Must have poor security/eye sight in Rotterdam

Somebody knows something...

Kind regards
rcw1

 

[sptrawler]

In Kalgoorlie you have the gold crime squad, I've never heard of the nickel police.
When I was a kid working there, your work clothes were covered in the $hit from the floatation cells, it all went through the washing machine. Lol
@IFocus Would know all about it, calibrating foxbro and Taylor specific density back pressure charting instruments the old 3 to 15 psi, 4 to 20 mA jobs.

 

[Sean K]

$20k looks like a floor on nickel at the moment, even with Indonesia massively increasing output. Not sure how they turned that on. It seems like their policy of halting exports and developing a nickel value chain in-country has worked well with quite a bit of investment coming in to develop steal and battery industries at home. They certainly seem to be in control of international ebbs and flows of production.

Still, price above $20k is good for current Ni developers when a year or so ago they were doing feasibility studies using about $15k a ton as a price assumption. Been some inflationary pressure on inputs but probably not $5000 a ton.

Indonesia’s uncertain climb up the nickel value chain | Lowy Institute

Demand for EVs is driving domestic and foreign direct investment in the country’s minerals sector. But caution is needed.

www.lowyinstitute.org

 

[Dona Ferentes]

$20k looks like a floor on nickel at the moment, even with Indonesia massively increasing output. Not sure how they turned that on. It seems like their policy of halting exports and developing a nickel value chain in-country has worked well with quite a bit of investment coming in to develop steel and battery industries at home. They certainly seem to be in control of international ebbs and flows ...]

Chinese wall of money.

 

[sptrawler]

Back down under $10USD/lb again.

 

[Sean K]

Nickel ducking below $20K.

Metals have had a shocking 18 months... I smell an opportunity.