Nickel futures rose to above $16,500 per tonne in March, testing their highest level in five months after dropping to near-four-year lows earlier this year following efforts from Indonesia to curb oversupply. The Indonesian government considered reducing nickel mining quotas by 120 million tons in 2025, enough to reduce global supply by 35% from current levels. Still, the reluctance for buyers to trigger a rebound indicated that nickel may remain oversupplied, as stocks at LME warehouses remained more than double from one year ago at nearly 200 thousand tons. This is due the surge of Chinese smelting projects in Indonesia after the latter prohibited the export of nickel ores in 2020. Indonesia was the host of 44 nickel smelting operations as of September, compared with four 10 years prior. In the meantime, manufacturing demand measured by both Chinese PMIs rose in February, raising bets that manufacturing activity may recover this year.
Nickel increased 826.38 USD/MT or 5.40% since the beginning of 2025, according to trading on a contract for difference (CFD) that tracks the benchmark market for this commodity. Historically, Nickel reached an all time high of 54050 in May of 2007. Nickel - data, forecasts, historical chart - was last updated on March 21 of 2025.
Nickel increased 826.38 USD/MT or 5.40% since the beginning of 2025, according to trading on a contract for difference (CFD) that tracks the benchmark market for this commodity. Nickel is expected to trade at 16240.52 USD/MT by the end of this quarter, according to Trading Economics global macro models and analysts expectations. Looking forward, we estimate it to trade at 15346.82 in 12 months time.