[ Nickel ]
[ Nickel ]
LME nickel prices and stocks
Sources : London Metal Exchange , Shanghai Futures Exchange
build a battery cell manufacturing plant and CNGR announced plans to build a US $ 10 billion battery material facility in the country . Those announcements add to previous ones in the value chain . In the future , it is likely that we will see Indonesia using more of its nickel resources in finished products . After declining in 2023 , nickel usage in Europe is expected to recover modestly in 2024 by + 0.7 % and then strongly in 2025 by + 3.6 %. Economic difficulties and strikes in some European STS mills have affected production over the last two years . In the Americas , usage is projected to expand by + 3.1 % in 2024 and by 3.2 % in 2025 , driven by the United States with a + 2.5 % growth rate in 2024 and + 3.3 % in 2025 . Demand in Africa decreased in 2023 ( -26.6 %), but a recovery is anticipated in 2024 (+ 8.7 %) and 2025 (+ 34.5 %). A new battery plant is planned to start production in Morocco by 2025 , which will spur nickel usage in the region . The STS sector remains the most important first-use market for primary nickel , although its share has been slowly declining , since it peaked in 2020 , because of the growing use of nickel in EVs . In 2024 , the proportion of nickel
“ In 2024 and 2025 , usage is forecast to increase by + 4.8 % and + 5.0 % respectively .”
used in STS is projected to decline further to around 69 %. Higher demand for nickel in order to produce lithiumion batteries will likely lead to a bigger proportion of the market accounted for by this sector over the coming years . The World Stainless Association ( former International Stainless Steel Forum / ISSF ) released figures for the first half of 2024 showing that “ stainless steel melt shop production increased by 6.3 % year – on – year to 30.4 million metric tons ”. At its annual industry conference in October 2024 , the Association stated that the world stainless steel consumption growth was forecast to be at + 4.0 % in 2024 and at + 3.0 % in 2025 .
Electric vehicles The rate of growth of nickel use in batteries for electric vehicles ( EV ) has been weaker than anticipated , negatively affected by the removal of subsidies , competition from non-nickel batteries
( mainly lithium iron phosphate ) and a recent relative preference in demand for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles ( PHEVs ) over battery EVs ( BEVs ). Nevertheless , it has been increasing . Rho Motion data shows that from January to September 2024 global passenger EV sales improved 23.5 % year-on-year ( YoY ), reaching 11.62M vehicles . Sales of PHEVs rose strongly by 50 % YoY , while sales of BEVs rose by only 12.4 % YoY . In terms of the regional split , China accounted for 62 % of the world sales from January to September 2024 for total EVs ( BEVs plus PHEVs ), an increase from 56 %. Europe accounted for 20 %, a decrease from 24 % in the previous year . The proportion accounted for by the USA also declined , but only marginally – from 11 % to 10 %. In the rest of the world there was a small rise from 8 % to 9 %. The Chinese battery market is dominated by non-nickel bearing LFP chemistry which accounts for more than 60 % of the batteries used in EVs . Additionally , PHEVs , that use smaller batteries than BEVs , had an impressive growth of 77 % YoY in the country , increasing their share among new energy vehicles . According to Mysteel , Chinese annual production of ternary precursors used
22 Stainless Steel World December 2024 www . stainless-steel-world . net