Nickel Ni
What it is for
Nickel's old market is stainless steel, which still takes most of it, and its new one is battery cathodes, which pay more for a purer product. The two uses need different grades, so headline nickel supply can be ample while battery-grade nickel is tight — an averaging problem that a single price series cannot show.
What it costs
Where it sits in the chain
Indonesia reshaped this chain deliberately. By banning exports of unprocessed ore it forced smelting onshore, converting itself from an ore supplier into a refined-metal exporter within a decade. It is the clearest recent example of industrial policy moving a country up a value chain, and the production figures record the volume without recording the policy that caused it.
Who has it
| Country | Production | Reserves | Year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Indonesia | 2,200,000 | 55,000,000 | 2024 |
| Philippines | 330,000 | 4,800,000 | 2024 |
| Russian Federation | 210,000 | 8,300,000 | 2024 |
| Canada | 190,000 | 2,200,000 | 2024 |
| China | 120,000 | 4,400,000 | 2024 |
| Australia | 110,000 | 24,000,000 | 2024 |
| New Caledonia | 110,000 | 7,100,000 | 2024 |
| Brazil | 77,000 | 16,000,000 | 2024 |
| United States | 8,000 | 310,000 | 2024 |
Production and reserves in thousand tonnes of contained nickel; price in US dollars per tonne.
How concentrated it is
Indonesia leads production by a wide and widening margin, with the Philippines, Russia and New Caledonia behind. Reserves are more spread out than output, which tells you the concentration is a matter of where capital was deployed rather than where the metal is.
What this cannot show
Nickel is where a benchmark price is least reliable. The 2022 London Metal Exchange squeeze saw trading suspended and executed trades cancelled, so the published price for that period reflects an administrative decision as much as a market. Class 1 and class 2 nickel are also not interchangeable for battery use, and one price covers both.
Other resources
Copper · Lithium · Cobalt · Potash · Phosphate · Iron ore · Aluminium · Zinc · Tin