General Information, page-1234

Newly hailed as a critical mineral last year by the US Geological Survey, the importance of nickel to the global mining landscape and world economy has rarely been in greater focus.

The equation is thus: currently around 2.5Mt of the stuff is mined and purchased worldwide, mostly used to reduce corrosion and wear in stainless steel.

In 20 years that demand profile will double in size, much of it from the battery industry where a specific type of nickel, the cheaper to process but hard to find nickel sulphide variety, is favoured for its capacity to convert to the battery grade chemical nickel sulphate.

Every man and his dog wants more nickel sulphides, including the world’s biggest miner BHP (ASX:BHP) and carmakers like Elon Musk’s Tesla, not necessarily right now but definitely in the not too distant future.

Without producing far more nickel than we mine currently — and lithium, copper, cobalt, graphite etc. — the EV revolution just ain’t happening.