[Ferro-alloys.com]At the end of Dec., the LME Ni price had already declined for three weeks, which pushed down the ferronickel price. Even though inquires for medium and high grade nickel ores was still active, the offers from buyers decreased. This week the medium and high grade nickel ores prices also went down slightly, while still many sellers held the stock and offered firmly. On Dec.26th, total nickel ores stock fell by 700thousand tons to 21million tons, the falling trend had last for 7 weeks.

The week the medium and high grade nickel ores spot and future price declined by RMB10/wet mt and USD1/wet mt respectively. Specifically, nickel ore with Ni1.6%, Ni1.7%, and Ni1.8% in Tianjin Port are quoted at RMB460-470/wet mt, RMB520-530/wet mt, RMB590-610/wet mt respectively, and the transaction price for Ni1.9% and Ni2.0% were RMB650-660/wet mt, RMB710-720/wet mt. High grade nickel ores future price decreased by USD1/wet mt as medium-grade nickel ore with Ni1.7% and Ni1.8% from Philippine are $60/wet mt FOB and $73/wet mt FOB.

Both spot and future price of low grade nickel ores stayed steady as FOB prices for nickel ore(Fe50%, water33%), nickel ore(Fe49%, water33%), nickel ore(Fe48%, water33%) stayed at $16-18/wet mt, $15-17/wet mt, $14-16/wet mt respectively. Spot prices for above materials were quoted at RMB220-230/wet mt, RMB210-220/wet mt and RMB200-210/wet mt. for the poor demand, the trading was not well and the buyers still tried to pressure on the price. However, compared with the Ni ore with Ni 0.6-0.8%, the traders showed optimistic mood for Ni ore with Ni 0.9-1.1% in the month before the end of Philippines rainy season.

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• [Editor:Juan]