High Voltage: Don’t let sexy lithium distract you from nickel and graphite’s quiet potential

Dec 7, 2022 from S . .k . . .d
Extract about Nickel

Nickel, graphite on a growth trajectory in 2023

Now, the good news; like lithium, the outlook for nickel and graphite remains very bullish.

Overall battery sector nickel demand and prices continued to grow in November, with lithium-ion batteries consistently consuming more nickel month-on-month despite COVID lockdowns in China.

“Benchmark anticipates sales will pick in China during the final months of 2022 as the domestic EV market looks to take advantage of government subsidies, set to expire at the end of the year,” it says.

“Notably, many of these vehicles will use high-nickel cathode technologies, increasing the demand for nickel from the EV industry, with Chinese EV battery production consuming almost 15,500 tonnes of nickel in October.”

That’s a 160% increase year-on-year, Benchmark says.

“As such, Benchmark data now indicates that the Chinese lithium-ion battery industry consumes over 10,000 tonnes of nickel each month on average, a volume which is rapidly increasing, marking a step change in consumption from even 2021, where the Chinese lithium-ion battery industry consumed an estimated average of 5,000 tonnes of nickel contained monthly.”

READ: As EVs boom the junior nickel market has cashed-up private equity firms circling