Posts tagged 'Nickel'

Preparing for a nickel glut?

Izabella Kaminska joined FT Alphaville in October 2008. Before that she worked as a producer at CNBC, a natural gas reporter at Platts and an associate editor of BP's internal magazine.

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| Jan 24 12:40 | Comment |

FT Alphaville doesn’t tend to follow the nickel market too closely, but the research from Goldman Sachs on Thursday did strike us as interesting (our emphasis):

2012 nickel market summary: Weak demand growth and lower input costs As background, nickel underperformed in 2012, starting the year at $18,910/t, rising to $21,700/t in early February, and finishing the year at $16,998/t, declines of 10.1% and 21.4%, respectively. Overall nickel prices averaged $17,536/t in 2012, down 23.4% yoy from 22,900/t in 2011. Price weakness reflected a combination of soft global consumption growth set against significantly higher low-cost nickel pig iron supply in China, and, importantly, a shift down of the nickel cost curve in 2H2012 (largely reflecting lower energy and nickel ore input prices).

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Norilsk turns down Glencore offer

| Aug 13 2010 05:09 | Comment |

Norilsk Nickel, the world’s biggest nickel producer, said on Thursday it had rejected an offer from Glencore, to buy the company’s entire nickel production in a deal that would have given the world’s largest commodities trader control of nearly half the global trade in the metal, reports the FT. Norilsk said the deal would have had “negative economic and non-economic effects” on the company. Disclosure of the offer comes amid a power struggle between Norilsk’s two key shareholders, Oleg Deripaska and Vladimir Potanin, for control of the company. Reuters reports on Friday that Potanin has raised $2bn from state bank Sberbank to repay his 2008 state rescue package, after the bank joined last month in a $4.5bn refinancing for Deripaska. Read more

Ebullio: We messed up, and we’re sorry

Izabella Kaminska joined FT Alphaville in October 2008. Before that she worked as a producer at CNBC, a natural gas reporter at Platts and an associate editor of BP's internal magazine.

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| Mar 18 2010 12:00 | Comment |

How refreshing.

A commodity hedge fund on Wednesday stunned metal investors not by denying forced liquidations; but rather by its oddly honest account of how badly it had done in the month of February. Read more

LME cancelled warrants are rising fast

Izabella Kaminska joined FT Alphaville in October 2008. Before that she worked as a producer at CNBC, a natural gas reporter at Platts and an associate editor of BP's internal magazine.

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| Feb 17 2010 12:12 | Comment |

Some intriguing gyrations are under way in the world of metal trading.

First, following a big dip in January, copper prices are on the rise again: Read more

Deripaska races to secure $2bn financing

Tracy Alloway used to be deputy editor of FT Alphaville. Here she learned the details of derivatives, the absurdities of accounting and the various structures of ... erm ... structured finance. She now covers big US banks for the FT paper, including Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. She pops up on FT Alphaville every once in a while.

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| Oct 20 2008 04:53 | Comment |

Time is running out for Russia’s richest man on paper to secure more than $2bn in financing to repay part of a $4.5bn loan to western banks before the end of October or hand to creditors a 25 per cent stake in the world’s biggest nickel miner. Oleg Deripaska’s race to meet creditors’ calls – or face the forced divestment of the stake in Norilsk Nickel - highlights the pressure on his vast empire amid the global credit crisis and worsening commodities prices. The FT’s Lex column says the the five-year commodity boom was just another asset price bubble after all. Read more