Nickel price surges to highest in seven years as supply dwindles

Bloomberg News | October 20, 2021 | 12:09 pm Battery Metals Intelligence Markets Top Companies Asia Nickel 

Nickel surged to a seven-year high in London amid concerns that there’ll be less supply of the key industrial metal to meet resilient demand from economies reopening as the pandemic retreats.

Vale SA, one of the top nickel producers, cut its production guidance for this year due to a strike at its Canadian mine, while the world’s largest refined nickel producer, MMC Norilsk Nickel PJSC, reported lower output in the third quarter. The Philippines, the second-largest producer of the metal used in kitchenware and electric car batteries, said output this year may be 10% less than the annual average, hampered by more frequent rains and fewer vessels coming in.

Nickel for three-month delivery on the London Metal Exchange settled 4.6% higher at $20,963 a metric ton as of 5:53 p.m. local time, the highest since May 2014.