Pertinent market/industry news/articles, page-5654

Me joining together some interesting dots...

3.37MT of 1.5% Ni ore grade imported from Phillipines in 7 months when annualised is 5.77MT of ore, giving 86,500T processed Ni.
That appears to be the forecast shortfall, say over 3 years. Why 3 years?
Because the Indonesian govt has set the next three years' Ni ore production quota at 240MT p.a. So the Indonesian Ni producers already know the domestic Ni supply limits for this period.

For perspective, ARL to produce 30,000T Ni, meaning Indonesia's import from Phillipines is almost 3x ARL's planned annual production. In my assumed scenario, ARL's planned annual production is coincidentally about the same as Indonesia's forecast annual supply shortfall.

My other takeaways from the article:

1. Looks like Indonesia is waking up to China's self-interested strategy in dominating the critical minerals resources.
2. The indicated current and future Ni demand is consistent with AP's intel on future Ni demand requiring all existing global Ni resources to be developed.
3. Ni production data from the Chinese producers continue to be intentionally opaque.
4. Very large companies such as Tsingshan do not bother announcing trivial reductions in Ni production. Trivial reductions are considered as normal variances in the production cycle. My guess is a decrease in at least 10% of its Indonesian nameplate annual production capacity of 50,000T.

So the economic facts are inevitably disclosed over time, despite China's opacity.
First it's the unsustainabiliy of Chinese lepidolite and African petalite Li ores vs Aus' pegmatite spodumene.
Next is now the laterite NI supply limitation in Indonesia.
Hmmm...

Based on social media commentaries, my guesses on future significant Ni-related economic disclosures:

• China's EVs are not as good as promoted and marketed. Probably to do with quality control, spare parts availability and lifespan value.
• Impurities in Chinese made and lepodilite/petalite-sourced Li-ion batteries causing increasing numbers of battery explosions.
• In terms of global demand, LFP Li-ion batteries will lose to NCM Li-ion batteries.

Time will tell.