Metals Traders Are Bracing for the Next Big Supply Squeeze
- Nickel surged to a decade high this week as stockpiles shrink
- Inventories are at ‘critical levels,’ Trafigura’s Weir says
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Industrial metal markets are marching higher again, as production outages and shrinking inventories revive worries about global supplies of some of the key building blocks of the economy and the green-energy transition.
Metals from aluminum to zinc surged in 2021 after the pandemic hit production at mines and smelters, wreaked chaos in global logistics networks, and sparked a boom in demand. In both copper and tin, London Metal Exchange inventory levels collapsed in squeezes that drove spot prices to records in wild trading.