Nickel prices have largely trended down since breaking US$20,000 per metric ton in May 2024.
The decline has been attributed to refined nickel oversupply, driven by high output from Indonesia, which mined an estimated 2.2 million metric tons of nickel in 2024 and accounted for more than 50 percent of global output.
The threat of US tariffs has also weighed heavily on markets that are reliant on nickel and its downstream products, such as the stainless steel and electric vehicle battery industries.
These factors pushed nickel to five year lows in the US$15,000 range in Q1.
