Japan Oil, Gas & Metals National Corporation had held a meeting on March 26th 2009 to report about the present situation and an outlook concerning minerals and metals and this meeting was well attended by the parties concerned.

Mr Takashi Ueki chief of investigation section of metals resources development division in the Corporation has delivered his speech titled 'Supply and Demand of Nickel' and the contents are summarized as follows. The main points are

1. An enlargement to reduce nickel production at nickel producers is expected to become effective from the second half of 2009 and according to information from Reuter, an analyst forecasts nickel price on the yearly average as USD 11,222 per tonne for 2009 and USD 13,482 per tonne for 2010

2. The world demand for nickel is decreasing but that from China is keeping firmness on a basic tone

3. The world demand for nickel started to decrease from the second half of 2008 and nickel price has been depressed, having caused to suspend many of new nickel projects. Consequently, the world production of nickel has decreased and nickel price moved in the range of USD 9,400 to USD 10,000 per tonne.

4. Major companies implemented M&A in relation to nickel. An oligopoly of nickel production has been on the high level from a previous time and, even after M&A, an extent of this oligopoly has remained as nearly unchanged

5. Nickel production by HPAL process is being put to practical use and even low grade oxidized nickel ore is becoming an objective material to develop and so on

Also, in this report, the supply and demand of nickel in China were analyzed and the quantity of nickel supplied to China in 2007 came to 320,000 to 330,000 tons per annum, having corresponded to the nickel consumption in China and consisted of domestic production and imports. The output of nickel ore in China has come to a standstill and, accordingly, China has been increasing to import nickel ore and nickel metal.

However, owing to the extraordinarily risen price of nickel in 2007, the world production of stainless steel has shifted largely from nickel based products to chrome based products. The output of nickel based stainless steel products in Japan for 2007 had decreased to 55.7% as a whole. Therefore, it can be said that the steeply risen price of nickel has caused to reduce the nickel consumption on a worldwide scale.

(Sourced from www.texreport.co.jp)