CHINA NICKEL BRIQUETTE SNAPSHOT: Premium slides on weakening demand in batteries, stainless sectors

Key data from the Tuesday October 30 pricing session in Shanghai.

Key drivers
- Battery demand weakened slightly in the Chinese market over October, and it sent ripples into battery raw materials, including nickel briquette.
- Both duty-free and duty-paid nickel briquette is abundant in the Chinese domestic market.
- Nickel briquette has also been affected by weak demand from the stainless steel sector in October. Fastmarkets MB's price assessment for benchmark 304 stainless cold-rolled coil in the major market of Wuxi was 15,400-15,700 yuan ($2,208-2,251) per tonne including VAT for the week ended Wednesday October 31, down from 15,600-15,900 yuan per tonne on September 26.

Key quotes
"Nickel briquette is available to purchase whenever we want to, and the battery business isn't good at the moment" - raw material procurer at a battery plant
"Demand for stainless steel isn't as good as in September, which is historically a peak season" - nickel briquette trader
"Currently, there's a slight oversupply of battery in the market, and so for us battery makers, we need to slow down the pace of procuring battery raw materials" - a second raw material procurer from a battery plant

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