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The Bull Case for Nickel: Thanks to @fbx258 and his broker

The Philippines account for ~500kt/pa of primarily supply – by far the biggest producer and almost double the next biggest, Russia. Given it looks like we’re going to see at least a temporary cut of ~50% of Philippine output, that’s the equivalent of taking all of Russian supply out of the market.

To put this in perspective, total global production was estimated at 2.1mt in 2016, so you’re looking at an ~12% hit to global output. That’s huge.

Another key thing to look for in order to have a reasonably high conviction that the time is right to start bottom feeding, is to see a commodity trading at or near its previous spike or bubble levels, which typically represents a loose “ marginal cost of production” level, where prices tend to return to after periods of over-exuberance. We’ve all been waiting for some kind of fundamental catalyst – there is a reasonable chance this Philippine news could provide this for us.