Nickel prices hit a new high this week.
The main contract of Shanghai nickel continued to rise on Friday night. As of January 22, it closed at 10870 yuan / ton, breaking the high point since listing again. Lun nickel reported US $24028 / ton, the highest level since August 2011.
Boosted by the demand for new energy vehicles, the price of nickel as an upstream raw material continued to rise. According to the statistics of Tonglian data, the price of Shanghai nickel futures has increased by about 60% in the past three years, and has increased by 18% since the beginning of 2022.
In the short term, the tension between supply and demand in nickel city is difficult to ease. According to SMM, the nickel price continued a strong trend this week. The inventory of London Metal Exchange (hereinafter referred to as "LME") and China fell to a very low level and is expected to continue to destock in the future. At the same time, the social inventory of pure nickel and the inventory in the bonded area continued to decline, the spot premium continued to rise, and the shortage of foreign and Chinese spot catalysed the rise of futures prices. Since 2022, the cumulative increase of Lun nickel futures has exceeded 15%. LME has repeatedly said to strengthen the monitoring of nickel and related varieties.
In 2021, the cost of automobile power battery increased significantly due to the sharp fluctuation of the price of metal raw materials such as nickel, cobalt and lithium. For the new energy vehicle industry chain, the cost of cathode materials accounts for the largest proportion in the power battery, and the cost of raw materials accounts for 90% of the cost of cathode materials.
With the sharp rise in raw material prices and the decline of new energy vehicle purchase subsidies, many vehicle enterprises have recently issued price increase notices.
On January 21, Byd Company Limited(002594) automobile announced an increase in the official guidance price of new energy models, ranging from 1000 yuan to 7000 yuan. Previously, Tesla, Nezha, Xiaopeng automobile and other auto enterprises raised the price of their models, and the heads of some auto enterprises publicly expressed their concerns about the rise of raw materials.
However, the prosperity of the industry still exists. With the large consumption of new energy vehicles, the demand for new energy batteries will further boost the nickel price in the future.
Chen Wenting, a global Platts nonferrous metals analyst at S & P, told China business news that the market expects the sales of new energy vehicles to exceed 6 million this year, which will continue to support the price of nickel sulfate (battery raw material).
Especially when the market share of ternary batteries is close to 50%, the demand for high nickel batteries is still optimistic. Universal analytics predicts that in 2025, lithium iron phosphate will reach 52% of the market demand for battery cathode, and ternary batteries will account for 48% of the market demand for cathode.
Recently, Tesla signed a six-year 75000 ton nickel supply contract with American miner Talon metals, which is Tesla's first nickel supply agreement in the United States. 75000 tons of nickel supply is equivalent to Nova's three-year output in the nickel mining area of Western Australia. It is estimated that the consumption end will be large. In the future, new energy batteries will further drive nickel consumption, which will form an opportunity for nickel upward.
As for the price rise cycle, when will it be cracked? In the opinion of Cao Yang, chief analyst of nonferrous metals of Dongzheng Futures Co., Ltd., the contradiction in the market at this stage has not been solved. The core lies in the low inventory expectation. In terms of the balance of refined nickel itself, the supply is a slow variable. After the price soars, the negative feedback of demand can be balanced by reducing demand, but at present, the demand of the new energy industry chain has a certain toughness, It can transmit part of the price rise pressure.
