The nickel full plate premium cif Shanghai registered only a minor uptick last month during an open arbitrage window, failing to replicate last year's record-breaking reaction - Metal Bulletin looks at the reasons why.
Market participants last reported an open import window in August to December last year, when the profit of importing foreign nickel full plates into China caused nickel full plate premiums to reach record highs. Metal Bulletin's nickel full plate premium cif Shanghai peaked in 2017 at $320-340 per tonne on October 10, 2017, compared with $170-200 per tonne at the start of August the same year. Yet Chinese nickel full plate premiums recorded just marginal gains and in-warehouse and seaborne nickel full plate trading activity picked up slightly when the import window opened in early July this year, according to market participants. Metal Bulletin assessed the value of Shanghai in-warehouse nickel premiums at $160-180 per tonne on July 31, widening upward by $10 per tonne since July 12 when the arbitrage turned positive. Meanwhile, Metal Bulletin's full plate nickel premium cif Shanghai edged up to $160-170 per tonne in the same pricing session from...