"Why do you think the chinese are trying to buy all Australian...

"Why do you think the chinese are trying to buy all Australian resources."

Yes, Chinas peasants entering the middle class provides the base load of nickel consumption in China. But the real reason why China is investing in any nickel project anywhere in the world is because they have been told to supply all the nickel required for the Governments new progamme about to start.

And man is that going to take a lot of nickel. At least 2X what they were planing during 2006.

However nickel pig iron and SS substitutes are going to increase exponientially. How this affects nickel long term we dont know, but its probably true to say that nickel prices reaching $50000us a tonne have been not good for the long term future of the nickel industry- the financial incentives to find alternatives are just so huge now. Users dont want to substitute, but they have to.