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https://sto ckh ea d.com.au/resources/highs-and-lows-will-the-energy-transition-be-the-boost-low-grade-nickel-developers-need-to-get-off-the-ground/

If assessments from Benchmark Mineral Intelligence are to be believed, within two decades we could need as many as 72 new nickel mines pumping out 42,000t of nickel every year to match demand from the battery and electric vehicle industry.

Let that sink in.

As a point of reference, we are talking about mines the size and scale of Glencore’s Murrin Murrin, the largest standalone nickel operation in Australia, a low-grade laterite deposit and HPAL plant which took over 15 years to hit something resembling its 40,000tpa nameplate capacity. By 2026 BloombergNEF estimates there will be 100 million EVs on the world’s roads. By 2040 that could rise to 700 million. That’s a whole lot of nickel, even if many of those cars will use nickel-less but lower range lithium-iron-phosphate battery types. In the short term the nickel market has been depressed this year by weaker than expected demand — more from the construction steel side — from China, with LME metal prices falling by a third to around US$20,750/t. The other fact is a massive rise in supply from Indonesia, the world’s biggest nickel producer.