Recently I posted a report that the Chinese NPI producers had...

Recently I posted a report that the Chinese NPI producers had agreed today to meet and slash NPI domestic Ni production.

This is the first signal publicly to the world that the chinese who represent officially 50% of global Ni demand (but the real figure is likely at 55%) that the low NP is over and they are now taking steps to boost the NP.

For the first time the chinese publicised a message that the NP is too low, they want us to believe they suddenly are going to act like a cartel & cut NPI production... but they already have been doing that since Nov 2014 in tandem and depleting their port stocks rapidly forcing many of them to import ferronickel stocks from Canada/Vale/sth america and secret stocks from Russia which has also all depleted also. The phillipines Ni ore has been slashed and china has put them in defacto sanctions over the islands dispute.

This is the first sign that the chinese Ni industry is in massive public turmoil with:-
- large loss production hidden in steel milling profits that is now unsustainable economically and dragging on their GDP
- their GDP drop is hurting the manufacturers
- the high yuan is hurting export growth
- they have critically low mill stock left which is "suicide"
- record high ferronickel imports up 300% monthly from 2013 now
- port stocks at 50 year lows, 10MT at 6 major ports down from 28MT in 2013 when NP was at 7.50
- low NP killing local NPI producers and cutting jobs and also hurting their GDP
- secret NI supplies from Russia, Kazakhstan, mongolia, sth America is depleted or diverted to Russian military production
- chinese military is undermined and cannot produce their budgeted hardware

If china starts screaming we have no Ni left and take all the LME they own (officially 8-10 weeks global supply but really around 6 weeks in actual metal), then we may see a sharp drop in the LME to 300KT faster than we thought.

The chinese Ni cartel will start public actions to boost the NP and recover supply, Tsingshan is a part of that, they want to secure future supply when this turns quickly.

Yes doom and gloom now but after every night there is a dawn. The chinese cartel have started this turnaround already by
- publicly calling a cartel production cut (not done before)
- slashing NPI production by 45% in 2 years and likely now down to around 80% lower and going even more lower
- heavy importing of ferronickel since January
- soaking up all black market supply from eurasia,
- depleting the LME of 58KT
- depleting the live warrants & increasingly cancelling warrants on the LME
- they need stock & supply urgently
- signing deals with POS
- Tsingshan seeking SS high grade DSO without milling

if the NP collapses or stays low for months, the reaction from the high cost NI producers & top 8 producers will be to put another 500KTpa of global production into C&M and this will set up the mother of all NP rebounds.

Global demand is officially estimated now at 1.99MTpa (try 2.3MTpa) and supply is estimated at 1.92MTpa (try 1.5MTpa and dropping fast).

NP has been the worst performing commodity this year, soon it will be the best performing commodity. When china decides to ramp the NP, do not get in front of that bus.

I agree with Stevenson, the N3 Eclipse is on its way sooner or later.