Biggest Nickel Producer Can’t Mine Enough to Satisfy China
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The Philippines will fail to satisfy China’s nickel ore demand and that may push up refined metal prices more than 15 percent, according to the largest miner in the world’s top producer.
The Southeast Asian nation won’t be able to supply enough ore once China exhausts stockpiles built up before last year’s export ban by Indonesia, previously the biggest producer, said Manny Samson, chief financial officer of Nickel Asia Corp. China’s output of nickel pig iron, a lower-grade substitute for the refined metal used to make stainless steel, may fall by about 30 percent when the country becomes solely dependent on Philippine supply, according to Samson.