Nickel prices jumped to two-week highs on Friday as flooding in Indonesia, a major producer and exporter of the metal, sparked fears of supply disruptions.
However, analysts, traders and officials told Reuters that there had been no impact on production and logistics due to the floods in the nickel mining hub Sulawesi.
Benchmark nickel on the London Metal Exchange (LME) rose as much as 1.9% to a two-week high of $12,065 a tonne, while Shanghai nickel climbed 3% to its highest since May 28 at 101,360 yuan ($14,640.63) a tonne.
“It’s short position squeeze in Shanghai for July nickel contract. The market just needs an incident to make price move,” said a nickel analyst based in China.
FUNDAMENTALS
- COPPER: Benchmark copper was almost flat at 0408 GMT, but was on track for its first weekly gain since the week ended April 12, while the most active Shanghai copper contract rose 0.1%.
- COPPER STOCKPILES: Copper inventories at warehouses tracked by the LME as of Wednesday jumped 18% from the previous session to 248,550 tonnes, the highest since September 2018, latest data showed. MCUSTX-TOTAL
- CODELCO: Unionised workers at Codelco’s Chuquicamata copper mine, one of the world’s largest, said they would walk off their job beginning Friday after the firm did not meet their key requests, including health care, fair treatment and retirement benefits.
- VEDANTA: Zambia will fine and break ties with mining firms that fail to operate according to the southern African country’s laws, President Edgar Lungu said on Thursday, escalating a dispute with India-listed Vedanta.
- LITHIUM: European lithium projects are making a fresh push for capital, eager to supply the white metal to a burgeoning network of battery manufacturers and electric vehicle makers across the continent, the world’s second-largest EV market after China.
