Stainless Steel News and Nickel Prices, Molybdenum, Metal Pricing, Ferrochrome
Daily Nickel/Stainless Steel Briefing
- Nickel closed Tuesday’s trading session at
$9.80/lb
($21,605/tonne). Indicators at 6:00 am CST today show nickel trading unchanged 
. Stockpiles of nickel stored in LME licensed warehouses fell every working day this month, and started today’s session just under the 54,250/tonne level. Nickel is waffling this morning, starting lower, apparently following SHFE’s overnight action, and now ever so slightly higher. Indonesia’s president told a delegation yesterday that Europe will likely win its complaint to the World Trade Organization against Indonesia’s nickel export ban. What that means to future nickel trade remains unclear. Our newest and more expensive computer, bought late last year, equipped with the new SSD hard drive, decided to do what the new SSD hard drive is not supposed to do – and crashed Thursday evening. Our computer guru has been, and remains on vacation, so many of our records are currently lost in a non functioning computer, hopefully not permanently. This is our first day back since last Thursday, with a new computer, and we apologize for the lack of entries the last few days. We missed our first of the month opportunity to thank our 2022 news sponsor, PA Inc, and we encourage you to visit their web site and see if they offer any services you might use. And we lost a lot of news links we had lined up for the three day holiday break. Many of them had to do with the sudden flood of news on EV battery manufacturers being built here in the U.S. and Canada, besides those being built in Indonesia and elsewhere in the world. There was also a story we thought was one of those that should make all these EV manufacturers sit up in their chairs. California, who just a few weeks ago, proclaimed they want no cars sold in that state after 2035 except EV or other zero emission technology, announced last week that they were suffering from excessive power demand due to the heat wave, and were asking ‘current’ EV owners not to charge their vehicles between 4 pm and 9 pm each evening. Not sure what your immediate thoughts are about that, but ours were along the line of “WTF?”. 60 Minutes, just a few weeks ago, showed a replay of a story they did on how easy it would be for someone to take out huge sections of the U.S. electrical grid – with a rifle. With energy costs climbing thru the roof in Europe, how long will it be before it costs as much to charge a car multiple times to travel as far as a tank of petrol would have cost and carried you? We wonder how far hurricane evacuees in Florida or Louisiana could travel before they need to recharge and how easy that task would be, with thousands of other evacuees needing the same charge? This isn’t just a western concern – China has black outs all the time, and yet, they too have provinces that have mandated a conversion to EV sales by 2035. The commercials showing electric pickups providing electricity to a house during a power outage are very cool, but if the power outage lasts longer than your truck battery does – then what? Not only is your house now dead in the water, but so is your transportation out of there. An EV without a charged battery is kind of like solar without the sun. Or a wind turbine on a windless day. As for us, we can’t even keep a plugged in computer working very long, so maybe we should just sit back, shut up, and watch the world modernize. Stay safe out there and have a great hump day! - Average price of LME traded cash nickel so far this month – $9.42/lb
- LME nickel chart – here / Euro/US Dollar chart – here
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Reports
Why Stainless Steel
Tuesday’s market review – Aluminium at 17-month lows as strong dollar overshadows smelter cuts – Aluminum prices fell to 17-month lows on Tuesday as a strong dollar and worries over economic growth overshadowed production cuts in Europe. – more
Analysis: Nickel meltdown puts spotlight on LME’s search powers – Stung by an epic crisis in nickel trading, the London Metal Exchange is ushering in new rules to boost transparency. – more
European energy crisis prompts widespread steel output cuts; nickel, chrome markets watch and wait – Soaring energy costs have triggered temporary production cuts at several steel mills across Europe, including those in the stainless sector, with speculation about possible further cuts spreading among nickel and chrome market participants. – more
Indonesia president says likely to lose WTO nickel dispute against EU – Indonesia will likely lose in its trade dispute against the European Union (EU) over the Southeast Asian country’s 2020 ban on exports of nickel ore, President Joko Widodo said on Wednesday. – more
Stainless Steel Prices Remained Rangebound in August, and are Likely to Increase in September with Consumption Recovery and Strong Cost Support – Although domestic macro favourable policies were successively introduced in August, the continuous surge in the U.S. dollar index and the sluggish stainless steel consumption caused stainless steel futures prices to fluctuate sideways. – more
EU, U.S. step up Russian aluminium, nickel imports since Ukraine war – The European Union and United States have ramped up buying key industrial metals from Russia, data showed, despite logistical problems spurred by the war in Ukraine and tough talk about starving Moscow of foreign exchange revenue. – more
Posco fire extinguished, Hyundai Steel fire continues to blaze on after typhoon – Multiple fires were reported at the facilities of the two largest steelmakers in Korea on Tuesday, just as the country was getting battered by Typhoon Hinnamnor early that morning. – more
Indonesia’s Tsingshan to cut stainless steel production due to low market – Indonesia’s Tsingshan Holding Group decided to cut its production by 30% in September and October. – more
Outokumpu Oyj : will delay the restart of one of its ferrochrome furnaces after a maintenance break…. – Outokumpu will delay the restart of one of its ferrochrome furnaces after a maintenance break due to the elevated electricity price – stainless steel deliveries to remain on a normal level – more
Indonesia’s Tsingshan to cut stainless steel production due to low market – Indonesia’s Tsingshan Holding Group decided to cut its production by 30% in September and October. Tsingshan stated that the stainless steel demand was low, but the market for new energy materials hiked. – more
Vale Indonesia signs $2 billion nickel project deal with Shandong Xinhai, Baowu – Nickel miner PT Vale Indonesia on Tuesday signed an investment deal with China’s Shandong Xinhai Technology Co. Ltd and a unit of China Baowu Steel Group Corp. Ltd to develop a processing plant on Sulawesi island. – more
Courtesy AISI – In the week ending on September 3, 2022, domestic raw steel production was 1,715,000 net tons while the capability utilization rate was 77.8 percent. Production was 1,858,000 net tons in the week ending September 3, 2021 while the capability utilization then was 84.2 percent. – more
Other News
- Reuters The Day Ahead – pdf here
Morning Stats and Prices
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