Next year will be a "transitional year" for the nickel market ahead of a shift into a structural deficit in 2021, Denis Sharypin, head of market intelligence at Norilsk Nickel, told delegates at Fastmarkets' International Ferro-alloys Conference in Budapest, Hungary, this week.
The market will strengthen as demand ramps up, especially with annual consumption from the battery sector swelling to 500,000 tonnes by 2025, Sharypin said. A turning point in electric vehicle (EV) adoption - and therefore nickel consumption by the battery sector - will come in 2021, since at that point automakers start to face penalties should their fleets not meet more stringent emissions standards....