China’s net imports of refined nickel fell to a near-decade low in 2023, capturing the tectonic shifts playing out in the global production chain.
The latest evolution is the ability of Chinese operators to convert intermediates into refined metal, generating a rise in exports of Class I material.China’s trade with Indonesia was transformed after the latter banned exports of nickel ore at the start of 2020. However, increasing amounts of capacity in Indonesia, much of it owned and operated by Chinese company, is now processing the country’s laterite ore into other forms of nickel such as matte and MHP as a metallic route into precursor materials for batteries.
Mined production jumped by 48% from 2021 to 2022 and by another 29% in the first 11 months of 2023, according to the International Nickel Study Group. Indonesia now accounts for over half of global production, compared with a third in 2019.China has historically been a significant net importer of refined nickel to cover the gap between the country’s relatively small refining sector and its burgeoning demand.
China has occasionally flipped to net exporter in the past but only briefly and in reaction to one-off events.