Event: according to the news client of China Central Television, on February 26 local time, the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom and Canada issued a joint statement, announcing that several major banks in Russia were prohibited from using the global Interbank Financial Telecommunications Association (Swift) international settlement system as the latest sanctions against Russia, At the same time, it implemented "restrictive measures" against the Central Bank of Russia to prevent the Central Bank of Russia from deploying its international reserves in a way that could undermine sanctions.
Comments:
\u3000\u30001. The demand for de dollarization of commodity trade settlement in Russia has increased. At present, it is stated that the "selected" Russian banks have been eliminated, and it is not clear whether all of them have been eliminated, but the impact risk of trade settlement has increased significantly. The three means for Russia to maintain the order of commodity trade are to build its own settlement system, increase and adjust international reserve assets, and increase the total amount of monetary settlement with surrounding countries. In the short term, metal varieties with low warehouse receipt inventory are facing the dilemma of increasing the difficulty of delivery, and the risk of being forced to close their positions is exacerbated.
① in 2014, in order to deal with the possibility of swift sanctions, the Bank of Russia established the Bank of Russia financial information system (SPFS). According to Shanghai Securities News, as of November 2021, the system has 400 users, including Armenia, Belarus, Germany, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Switzerland in addition to Russian banks, Twenty three countries have acceded to the agreement. According to Netease, Russia plans to link SPFS with the settlement systems of the eurozone, Iran, China and other countries.
② since 2020, Russia has continuously adjusted its international asset reserves. In May 2021, the Russian Central Bank recently announced that the total amount of "international reserve assets" - including foreign exchange reserves (equivalent to US $450.9 billion) and gold reserve assets (equivalent to US $137.1 billion) by the end of 2020 rose to US $588 billion. The position of US dollar and US dollar assets in Russia's international reserves has dropped to 21.2%, down 3.3 percentage points year-on-year; The proportion of euro in Russia's international reserves decreased by 1.6 percentage points to 29.2%; Gold reserves equivalent to USD 137.1 billion, accounting for 23.3% of the total international reserves, an increase of 3.8 percentage points compared with 19.5% of the previous year; The proportion of RMB in Russia's international reserve assets increased to 12.8% from 12.3% last year.
③ according to sina finance, in the payment business between China and Russia in 2020, the value of RMB settlement reached US $48.062 billion, about 44.92% of the total settlement amount between the two countries (US $106986 billion); Euro settlement rose to US $40.531 billion, accounting for 37.88% of the total trade settlement - the first and second largest currency of cross-border payment business between China and Russia.
\u3000\u30002. The vulnerability of European energy trade security has intensified, and the overseas supply risk of energy cost sensitive metal varieties has intensified.
According to Bloomberg, in 2021, Russia's pipeline natural gas to Europe accounted for 35% of Europe's total imports, and Russia's crude oil exports accounted for 29% of Europe's total imports. In February 2022, the European natural gas inventory index fell to about 31%, which was a historical low in recent five years. Although the US energy information administration data show that in January 2022, the US LNG exports to Europe almost doubled from November last year. However, Ruth Liao, LNG editor for the United States of ICIS, a global petrochemical information service provider, said that although the United States has increased LNG ships to Europe, Europe's LNG import capacity is limited by infrastructure conditions, and it is difficult to improve the regasification capacity of natural gas in the short term, which still plays a limited role in making up for the supply of natural gas. Typical metal varieties with high unit energy consumption include sponge titanium (32000kw / h), electrolytic nickel (18500kwh / MT), electrolytic aluminum (13500kwh / MT) and zinc (3600kwh / MT). According to usgs2021, the global share of Russian output of sponge titanium / nickel / aluminum / zinc is about 12.9% / 9.3% / 5.4% / 2.2% respectively.
The price of pure nickel accelerated and the premium of nickel sulfate fell
In terms of premium, the average weekly premium of battery grade nickel sulfate last week was 6800 yuan / ton, a year-on-year decrease of 17.1%. According to SMM, the supply side of nickel sulfate: at present, the output has not recovered significantly, and the nickel sulfate factory has almost no spot inventory, so the quotation rises actively; Demand side: the downstream ternary precursor has good orders and tight supply, and the factory's demand for nickel sulfate will be further increased. In terms of pure nickel, the Russian Ukrainian war triggered market concerns, adding that Russia was subject to swift sanctions, which affected the delivery time and consumption of global nickel trade in the future. The nickel price hit a record high, and the price difference between the two narrowed again. It is expected that in the short term, with the intensification of Russia Ukraine relations, the nickel price may continue to maintain an upward trend, while the supply and demand of nickel sulfate is tight, and the premium may still expand slightly.
Risk warning: demand is lower than expected, supply release is higher than expected, macro-economy fluctuates greatly, etc
