Looking better, page-8

interesting read from the afr, boots on the ground seeing the reality of nickel supply.

‘Data not accurate’: Macquarie’s nickel veteran says rout ending

London | The nickel turmoil of last year may blow over more quickly than previously expected, according to Macquarie’s 44-year veteran nickel watcher Jim Lennon, as unexpectedly high Chinese demand and potentially slower Indonesian growth rebalance the market.

Mr Lennon has just returned from a visit to China that has triggered a “major change” to Macquarie’s forecasts for nickel – a market in which prices nose-dived by almost 50 per cent last year, and which many analysts still expect to be stuck in the doldrums this year.

He and his team discovered that Chinese stainless-steel makers and other users of nickel alloys were boosting their output more than almost anyone had realised, so the debilitating Indonesia-led supply glut was far smaller than thought.

“Everybody … subscribes to information in China that gives us the data. But it’s only by going there that you start to realise that the official data is not accurate,” he told The Australian Financial Review. “Essentially, demand in China was much stronger than most people had in their numbers.”

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