Nickel
LME
The metal that broke its own exchange in 2022, then drowned in Indonesian supply.
Top Producers
share of 2024 mine production
Top Consumers
share of 2024 primary nickel consumption
Main Uses
share of 2024 primary nickel demand by end use (INSG)
Top Exporters
share of 2024 nickel exports across all forms (refined class 1, NPI, ferronickel, intermediates and ore), UN Comtrade / INSG; Indonesia dominates via finished products, Russia leads class 1
Top Importers
share of 2024 nickel imports across all forms (UN Comtrade / INSG); China pulls in ore, intermediates, and refined metal to feed stainless and battery supply chains
World mine production
roughly 3.7 million tonnes
as of 2024
Indonesia share of mine supply
roughly 60 percent
as of 2025
Stainless steel share of demand
roughly two-thirds
as of 2025
March 2022 intraday peak
above $100,000 per tonne
March 8, 2022
Price range through 2024-2025
roughly $15,000 to $17,000 per tonne
as of 2025
Nickel spent the 2020s living two extreme stories at once. The first was the March 2022 crisis: with Russia's invasion of Ukraine threatening supply from Norilsk, a massive short position held by China's Tsingshan Group was squeezed until the LME price doubled past $100,000 a tonne in hours on March 8, 2022. The LME suspended trading and cancelled the morning's trades, roughly $12 billion worth, triggering lawsuits from Elliott Management and Jane Street (dismissed in November 2023), a 9.2 million pound FCA fine in March 2025, and a rebuild of exchange safeguards: daily price limits, OTC position reporting, and a decisive shift to electronic pricing. Nickel liquidity took roughly two years to recover.
The second story made the first almost irrelevant: Indonesia flooded the market. After banning raw ore exports in 2014 and again in 2020, Indonesia forced the smelting industry onshore, and Chinese-funded plants converting laterite ore to nickel pig iron and, via high-pressure acid leach (HPAL) plants, to battery-grade material scaled faster than anyone forecast. Indonesia now mines roughly 60 percent of the world's nickel, and the surplus crushed prices from above $30,000 a tonne in early 2023 to roughly $15,000 to $16,000 through 2024 and 2025. The casualties were Western: BHP suspended its entire Nickel West division in Australia from late 2024, First Quantum mothballed Ravensthorpe, and New Caledonia's industry fell into crisis.
The market also has a structural quirk: the LME contract delivers only class 1 refined metal, while most of the world's units are now class 2 (nickel pig iron, ferronickel) or intermediate products like mixed hydroxide precipitate, which trade at discounts assessed by price reporting agencies. The LME has fast-tracked new Chinese and Indonesian brands to keep its contract connected to where supply actually comes from. Stainless steel still takes roughly two-thirds of demand; the battery share, once forecast to take over the market, stalled as automakers shifted toward nickel-free LFP chemistry.
How It Trades
| Venue | LME (global benchmark), SHFE (China); class 2 and intermediates priced via agency assessments |
| Benchmark contract | LME Nickel 3-month forward |
| Contract size | 6 tonnes |
| Price terms | USD per tonne |
| Settlement | Physical delivery of LME warrants in class 1 refined form (full-plate cathode, briquettes); NPI, ferronickel, and MHP trade OTC at assessed discounts to the LME. |
| Typical curve | Contango through the 2023-2025 surplus; capable of violent backwardation in squeezes, as March 2022 proved. |
| Liquidity | Thinner than copper or aluminium, and badly damaged by the 2022 crisis; volumes recovered to pre-crisis levels by roughly 2024-2025 but the market remains squeeze-prone. |
Where It Trades
approximate share of global daily exchange volume, 2025
Supply and Demand
Top producers
- Indonesia: roughly 2.2 million tonnes mined, roughly 60 percent of the world, almost all feeding onshore Chinese-built NPI and HPAL plants
- Philippines: roughly 0.3 million tonnes, mostly ore shipped to China
- Russia: roughly 0.2 million tonnes (Norilsk Nickel), the largest class 1 producer
- New Caledonia, Canada, Australia: roughly 0.1 to 0.2 million tonnes each, all under cost pressure
World mine supply is roughly 3.7 million tonnes. Indonesian policy (ore quotas, export taxes, RKAB mining permits) is now the dominant supply variable; everything else is rounding.
Top consumers
- China and Indonesia combined: roughly 70 percent of primary nickel use, dominated by stainless production
- European Union
- Japan, South Korea, United States, India
Major uses
- Stainless steel: roughly two-thirds of demand
- EV batteries (nickel-rich NCM cathodes): roughly 10 to 15 percent
- Superalloys for aerospace and turbines
- Plating and specialty alloys
What Moves the Price
- Indonesian supply policy: mining quotas, export taxes, and new plant ramp-ups
- Stainless steel production rates in China and Indonesia
- EV battery chemistry shifts between nickel-rich NCM and nickel-free LFP
- The class 1 versus class 2 spread and what is actually deliverable on the LME
- Russian supply and sanctions risk on Norilsk units
- LME stocks and post-2022 market structure rules
- Cost-curve attrition among Western producers
Moments That Made the Market
1979
The LME launches nickel trading.
2007
Nickel hits a then-record near $54,000 a tonne in May on the stainless boom and LME stock squeeze.
2014
Indonesia bans raw ore exports, the founding act of its downstream nickel empire.
2020
The full Indonesian ore export ban takes effect; NPI and HPAL investment floods in.
2022
The March 8 squeeze doubles the price past $100,000 intraday; the LME suspends trading and cancels roughly $12 billion in trades.
2023
The English High Court dismisses the Elliott and Jane Street lawsuits in November; Indonesian surplus drives prices steadily down.
2024
BHP suspends Nickel West; Western capacity exits as prices sit near roughly $16,000.
2025
The FCA fines the LME 9.2 million pounds in March, the first UK fine of an exchange.
What Changed Since the 2010 Handbook Era
- Indonesia's ore export bans built a vertically integrated nickel industry that now supplies roughly 60 percent of the world, up from under 10 percent in 2010.
- Class 2 and intermediate products became the real market, leaving the LME class 1 contract representing a shrinking slice of physical flow.
- The March 2022 crisis nearly destroyed the LME and produced daily price limits, OTC position reporting, and electronic pricing.
- The battery demand thesis was tempered by LFP chemistry, which needs no nickel at all.
- The cost curve moved decisively to Indonesian laterites, forcing Australian, Canadian, and New Caledonian sulphide producers out.