Is the reason why the price of lithium battery rises because nickel metal rises too much?

Recently, the price changes represented by nickel have attracted the attention of the global market. From March 7 to 8, the price of nickel futures on the London Metal Exchange soared, with a cumulative increase of 248% in the two days, which directly led to the suspension of nickel futures on the London Metal Exchange, and the three-day limit and two-day limit of nickel futures on the Shanghai Futures Exchange. The futures price not only loses its guiding significance to the spot price, but also brings obstacles and difficulties to the purchase of raw materials and hedging of enterprises, disrupts the normal production and operation of nickel upstream and downstream enterprises, and has a serious impact on the global nickel and upstream and downstream related enterprises

Nickel metal is widely used in aircraft, radar and other military manufacturing, civil machinery manufacturing, electroplating industry and other fields. Duan Shaofu, director of heavy metal Department of China Nonferrous Metals Industry Association, said that the nickel price of "high external and low internal" has affected the sustainable development of nickel and related industries in China. China is the largest nickel consumer in the world, but it is poor in nickel resources and relies on more than 90% of foreign raw materials. However, the nickel raw materials imported from China are usually priced according to the nickel futures of the London Metal Exchange. The situation of "high external and low internal" will reduce the import enthusiasm of domestic enterprises, affect the supply of raw materials, and is not conducive to the transformation of China's industrial chain advantages into economic advantages, nor conducive to the stable growth of China's industrial economy. Experts believe that the sharp rise in the price of nickel metal is the result of the joint action of many factors. The uncertainty of the international political and economic situation has increased, the risks of the commodity market have spilled over, the pressure of import inflation has increased, the impact of the epidemic has been superimposed, the investment in environmental protection has increased, and the production cost has risen rigidly. As a result, the prices of large-scale raw materials have remained high on the whole, the downstream consumption has continued to recover rapidly, and the market supply and demand have become tight on the whole. Duan Shaofu believes that comprehensively improving the stability and safety level of China's nickel supply chain is the fundamental policy to deal with the irrational rise of China's nickel metal, ensure the safety of China's nickel and other minerals, and deal with emergencies such as the "nickel futures incident". The basic situation of the long-term development of China's nickel and other minerals and a large number of imported raw materials will not change.

Therefore, it is necessary to plan the construction of the national reserve system as a whole. The government and key enterprises should explore the establishment of a reserve system that takes overall consideration and combines strategic reserve with commercial reserve, effectively prevent and resolve various risks and challenges, further ensure the supply chain security of the entire industrial chain, and promote the establishment of a diversified strategic mineral resources reserve system. The state has repeatedly issued strong policy signals, saying that it will continue to ensure the supply and price stability of bulk commodities. The China Nonferrous Metals Industry Association has also issued many appeals, stressing that it will resolutely maintain the stable operation order of the nonferrous metals market. The association will follow the work requirements of the Party Central Committee and the State Council on ensuring the supply and price of bulk commodities, pay close attention to the operation of the industry, timely report suggestions to relevant departments, and warn enterprises of risks. Duan Shaofu suggested that non-ferrous metal enterprises should consciously implement the Convention on self discipline of China's non-ferrous metal industry, strengthen industry self-discipline, stabilize market expectations, maintain market price order, prevent vicious speculation and irrational price rise of non-ferrous metal products, and strive to ensure stable and healthy operation of domestic circulation. The non-ferrous metal industry has typical characteristics of marketization, internationalization and financialization. Non ferrous metal enterprises should improve their risk prevention awareness and improve the application level of risk management tools. "Going global" enterprises should be fully familiar with international market rules and formulate emergency plans.

Experts said that the "nickel futures event" highlighted the importance and urgency of promoting the internationalization of relevant non-ferrous metal futures. The next step is to accelerate the internationalization of China's nickel futures and improve China's commodity pricing ability. "Under the top-level design, if the market-oriented purchase and sales pricing mode of 'international platform, bonded delivery, net price trading and RMB pricing' is adopted, it can not only establish the image of Chinese enterprises in market-oriented trade, improve the pricing ability of Chinese goods, but also reduce the hedging risk of overseas Chinese Enterprises. It is suggested to strengthen the research on the change trend of nickel industry pattern and pay close attention to cultivating nickel derivative futures varieties. "Duan Shaofu said. In recent years, most new global nickel investment projects have been led by Chinese enterprises. The implementation of overseas projects by Chinese enterprises has a direct impact on the stability of the global non-ferrous metal market. Compared with production, consumption and market share, China's role in relevant international organizations is relatively weak." It is suggested to increase support for industry associations to join international organizations and better speak for China. "Duan Shaofu said:

How does nickel metal support the transformation of low-carbon energy?

In this series of articles on key metals and low-carbon future, we re focus on a metal element - nickel. As an important material in the field of new energy, it is related to our first article (how will lithium affect the low-carbon future?) Like the lithium element mentioned above, it is also widely used in the manufacture of electrode materials. In addition, another important use of nickel is to manufacture important alloys for fan blades and nuclear reactors. Whether it is in the "interior" of the battery of Mercedes Benz new energy vehicle or in the "exterior" of the gearbox of the wind turbine rotating on the plain, the nickel content is more or less. Therefore, in the third issue of the series of articles "key metals and low carbon future", we will focus on the metal elements that can support the transformation of low-carbon energy "from inside to outside", and discuss their supply and demand, as well as the nickel resource challenges that China may face in the future.