By Andy Home
LONDON, March 8 (Reuters) - China's Ministry of Finance made some minor but significant tweaks to its nickel import tariffs at the start of this year.
The import duty on melting-grade nickel cathode was doubled from 1 percent to 2 percent, while that on nickel sulphate was cut from 5.5 percent to 2 percent.
Why the differentiation?
The reason is that nickel sulphate is a form of the metal highly suited to the production of precursor battery materials.
China, already a leader in the electric vehicle (EV) battery sector, is evidently laying the ground for stimulating imports of nickel in the most readily usable composition for lithium-ion battery processing.
Batteries are still a relatively small part of nickel's usage profile, representing about 4 percent of global demand, according to the International Nickel Study Group.
But everyone knows that ratio is only going to increase as the electric vehicle revolution builds momentum.
As it does, however, it could fragment an already cracked market, both in terms of the supply chain and pricing.
HOW DO YOU TAKE YOUR NICKEL?
Most of the world's nickel production -- about 70 percent of it -- is used as an alloying input in the production of stainless steel.
The type of nickel used for stainless production was historically, in ascending order of price, stainless steel scrap, ferronickel and refined metal.
But the Chinese initiated a materials revolution around the middle of the past decade in response to nickel's extraordinary bull run to more than $50,000 a tonne in 2007.
Looking for cheaper alternatives, they unearthed a technology that had been explored but never developed, namely nickel pig iron (NPI).
An explosion in this form of the metal has generated far-reaching consequences, including a whole new nickel ore supply stream from Indonesia and the Philippines, the offshoring of NPI production and even stainless steel production to Indonesia and the crash in the nickel price to less than $10,000 in 2016.
Producers of more conventional types of nickel are still struggling to adjust. Witness the decision late last year by Vale, the world's largest producer, to mothball production capacity.
THE WRONG SORT OF NICKEL
Nickel's existing dynamics, beholden as they are to the needs of stainless steel producers, are highly problematic for the EV sector.
Most of the world's current production growth is taking place in the NPI segment of the market.
NPI production is forecast to hit 700,000 tonnes this year, compared with global refined output of 2.08 million tonnes in 2017, according to Wood Mackenzie ("Nickel: Five things to look for in 2018", January 2018).
Global mine output, the research house says, will increase by more than 10 percent this year but just about all of that will come from Indonesia and the Philippines in the form of nickel ore destined for NPI processing.
The problem is that none of this material is suited for production of the nickel sulphate powder desired by battery makers.
It's not impossible to transform NPI into sulphate, but it's neither economical nor logical. As a result, to quote Wood Mackenzie, "about half of global nickel production is not available" for battery usage.
The incentive to build new capacity to produce the right sort of nickel, however, is simply not there because of the price impact of the NPI boom.
The London Metal Exchange (LME) nickel price is today trading around the $13,000. That's an improvement on the sub-$10,000 pricing that persisted over the course of 2016 and the first half of 2017.
But, as Vale has shown, it's still the sort of pricing landscape in which established producers are as likely to shutter existing production capacity as to bring on new operations.
This is a major potential headache for the ever-growing EV segment of the nickel market.
In fact, it is a double problem for battery makers because low nickel prices have also served as a deterrent to new cobalt production, another key lithium-ion battery input.
Outside of the African copper belt, cobalt tends to be found as a by-product in nickel deposits.
Many smaller miners of such deposits closed during the market downturn of 2015 and 2016 and the nickel price hasn't moved enough to revitalise any of them.
Graphic on changing nature of LME nickel stocks:
http://tmsnrt.rs/2FiS1f3
ONE MARKET OR MULTIPLE MARKETS?
Future demand for nickel sulphate is only going to accentuate the existing structural tensions between different types and chemistries of nickel.
That's the nature of the stuff. It comes in so many different varieties that the tradeable commodity is constantly shape-shifting.
Take the London Metal Exchange (LME) contract, for example.
Although the exchange's physical delivery criteria are uniform in terms of minimum purity and impurity levels, they allow for a wide variety of shapes, ranging from pellet to briquettes to cut cathode.
The LME's decision to delist two Russian brands of full-plate nickel, for the quite understandable reason that Nornickel no longer produces them, has changed the essence of the contract.
Russian full-plate, which used to account for just about all LME stocks, has been shipped to China, where it is still deliverable against the Shanghai Futures Exchange (ShFE).
Full-plate nickel currently accounts for less than 20 percent of total registered stocks. The share of stocks in bagged briquettes, by contrast, has risen from zero at the start of 2012 to 79 percent.
The coming electric vehicle revolution opens up a whole new schism between nickel in metallic form and in chemical form.
Premiums for chemical nickel are already diverging as battery makers have to pull extra units from the stainless or super-alloy process streams.
The obvious outcome is for the nickel market to split into two distinct entities, and the LME has already indicated it is considering launching a new contract for nickel sulphate. The exchange is also, by the way, studying a cobalt sulphate contract for exactly the same reason.
Because right now the "nickel market" is still in lock step with its traditional stainless steel demand base. That base is actively working against the efficient evolution of a separate supply chain stream to feed battery demand.
The tensions are growing all the time.
The EV story is a strong, slow-burn bull case for higher nickel prices.
Nickel sulphate prices, not nickel pig iron prices.
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路透伦敦3月8日电---中国财政部今年初对镍进口关税做出了一些微小而重大的调整。
熔化镍阴极的进口关税从1％增加到2％，而硫酸镍的进口关税从5.5％下调到2％。
为什么分化？
原因是硫酸镍是一种非常适合制造前体电池材料的金属。
中国已经是电动汽车（EV）电池领域的领导者，显然正在为刺激进口镍用于锂离子电池加工的最容易使用的组合物奠定基础。
根据国际镍研究组织的数据，电池在镍的使用情况中仍占相对较小的一部分，约占全球需求的4％。
但每个人都知道，随着电动汽车革命势头的增加，这个比例才会上升。
然而，它确实可以在供应链和定价方面对已经破裂的市场进行细分。
你如何拿你的镍？
世界上大部分的镍生产 - 约占其70％ - 被用作不锈钢生产中的合金化投入。
用于不锈钢生产的镍的类型历来是按价格，不锈钢废料，镍铁和精炼金属的升序排列的。
但中国人在过去十年中发起了一场材料革命，以应对镍2007年超过每吨5万美元的非凡牛市。
寻找更便宜的替代品，他们发掘了一种已探索但未开发的技术，即镍生铁（NPI）。
这种形式的金属爆炸产生了深远的后果，包括来自印度尼西亚和菲律宾的全新镍矿供应流，NPI生产的离岸外包，甚至不锈钢生产到印度尼西亚以及镍价暴跌2016年超过10,000美元。
更传统类型的镍生产商仍在努力调整。见证全球最大的生产商淡水河谷去年年底决定进行后备产能。
镍的错误分类
镍的现有动态，因为它们满足不锈钢生产商的需求，对于电动汽车行业来说是非常严重的问题。
目前全球大部分产量增长都在市场的非营利机构部分进行。
根据Wood Mackenzie（“Nickel：2018年要寻找的五件事”，2018年1月），预计NPI产量今年将达到70万吨，而2017年全球精炼产量为208万吨。
研究机构称，全球矿产产量今年将增加10％以上，但几乎所有这些产量都将来自印尼和菲律宾，以镍矿石形式用于非营利机构加工。
问题是这种材料都不适合生产电池制造商所需的硫酸镍粉末。
将NPI转化为硫酸盐并不是不可能的，但它既不经济也不合逻辑。因此，引用Wood Mackenzie的话，“全球约一半的镍产量不可用”用于电池使用。
然而，由于NPI繁荣的价格影响，建立生产正确类型镍的新能力的动力根本不存在。
伦敦金属交易所（LME）镍价今天在13,000美元附近交易。这对于2016年和2017年上半年持续的低于10,000美元的定价有所改善。
但正如淡水河谷所显示的那样，它仍然是一种定价格局，在这种定价格局下，现有生产商有可能关闭现有生产能力以实现新的运营。
这对镍市场不断增长的电动汽车市场来说是一个主要的潜在头痛。
事实上，这对电池制造商来说是一个双重问题，因为低镍价格也成为另一个关键锂离子电池投入对新钴生产的威慑。
非洲铜带外，钴往往被发现是镍矿床的副产品。
在2015年和2016年的市场低迷期间，许多小矿的这种存款被关闭，而镍价并没有足够振兴其中的任何一个。
伦敦金属交易所镍库存性质变化图：
http://tmsnrt.rs/2FiS1f3
一个市场还是多个市场？
未来对硫酸镍的需求只会加剧镍不同类型和化学成分之间现有的结构紧张。
这是东西的本质。它有很多不同的品种，可交易的商品不断变形。
以伦敦金属交易所（LME）合约为例。
虽然交换的物理交付标准在最低纯度和杂质水平方面是统一的，但它们允许各种各样的形状，从丸粒到煤球到切割阴极
由于Nornickel不再生产这些镍的理由很可以理解，LME决定退出俄罗斯两个品牌的全镀镍，这已经改变了合同的本质。
俄罗斯的全盘，曾经是几乎所有伦敦金属交易所股票的交易对象，已经运往中国，目前仍在交易所上海期货交易所（ShFE）交易。
全盘镍目前占登记股票总量的不到20％。相比之下，装袋煤炭的库存份额从2012年初的零增长到79％。
即将到来的电动汽车革命开启了镍在金属形式和化学形式之间的全新分离。
由于电池制造商必须从不锈钢或超合金工艺流中抽取额外的设备，因此化学镍的保费已经出现分化。
显而易见的结果是镍市场分裂成两个不同的实体，LME已经表示正在考虑启动硫酸镍的新合同。顺便说一下，交易所也出于完全相同的原因研究硫酸钴合同。
因为目前“镍市场”仍然与传统的不锈钢需求基础保持一致。该基地正在积极对抗单独供应链流的有效演进，以满足电池需求。
紧张局势一直在增长。
电动汽车的故事是镍价上涨的强劲缓慢的公牛事件。
硫酸镍价格，不含镍生铁价格。
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dapanji的思考
Re: dapanji的思考
我也不看好锂电池，因为这个行业手机搞了这么多年，门槛越来越低，又没什么垄断，越搞越白菜价，
而且新能源车的保养成本很低，买个车电池用十年，中间也不会去更换什么的，周转周期低于手机的2、3年。
电机好像是国外垄断，还没研究。
另外的机会就是新的整车公司，有可能会出现小米那样的公司出来，但目标还看不到。
确定性太低了~~~~
而且新能源车的保养成本很低，买个车电池用十年，中间也不会去更换什么的，周转周期低于手机的2、3年。
电机好像是国外垄断，还没研究。
另外的机会就是新的整车公司，有可能会出现小米那样的公司出来，但目标还看不到。
确定性太低了~~~~
长风破浪会有时，直挂云帆济沧海
Re: dapanji的思考
一直以来我都摆脱不了一个很傻*的操作：错了不肯轻易止损
橡胶跌破12500我就知道看错了，那个时候全换成苹果可以赚不少了
结果现在还留了1手……
橡胶跌破12500我就知道看错了，那个时候全换成苹果可以赚不少了
结果现在还留了1手……
看图出奇迹，看基本面穷三代