Knotty nickel supply chain highly exposed to fresh shocks

(mining.com) - The nickel market is hostage to two mercurial players: Russia’s Vladimir Potanin and China’s Xiang Guangda. Both the bosses of Norilsk and Tsingshan have swayed the market for decades. But now the pair’s impact on nickel trading is even more outsized. There are no sanctions on Russian nickel. Canada, Australia placed sanctions on Potanin. The UK followed suit at the end of June. Judging by the lack of market reaction to the announcements, Norilsk’s nickel appears to be flowing freely, with the price dipping below $20,000 a tonne this week for the first time this year. Kwasi Ampofo, Head of Metals and Mining at BloombergNEF, tells MINING.COM that while Russia is responsible for around 9% of global nickel production, its output of class 1 nickel is closer to 20%. That makes it by far the biggest producer globally of nickel suitable for the battery supply chain.