China Nonferrous Metals News
New NPI projects are gradually coming online in both China and abroad. At present, two blast furnaces at a NPI smelter in eastern China have come online and generated output in January. A third blast furnace at the same smelter commenced raw materials feed in early February. A high-NPI smelter in Jiangsu has plans to bring a second blast furnace online in March 2019, increasing its monthly output by 4 kt once it achieves in full operation. In Indonesia, the No. 10 furnace of Delong Indonesia came online in mid-January; Shanghai Huadi’s NPI project is operating smoothly, and the successful supply of power to Hengkang’s NPI project signals that its second production line will come online soon.
Several NPI smelters in IM and Indonesian have suspended operations on low profit margins after NPI prices fell under RMB 950/nickel unit, approaching the production cost. At present, with current NPI prices rebounding to RMB 1,000/nickel unit, the previously closed/idled smelters are likely to restart operations soon, seeing increased supply likely to weigh on prices in the short term.
