The three-month futures price of nickel on the London Metal Exchange (LME) went up by US$130/ton yesterday (September 23), closing at US$19,351/ton. The spot price also rose by US$138.5/ton, reaching US$19,373.4/ton.

The current average nickel price of September is around US$19,587/ton, higher than the US$19,141/ton in the previous month.

Meanwhile, LME’s market inventory of nickel continued dropping, down by 1,272 tons to 164,610 tons. The decrease in September has amounted to 29,856 tons so far.

According to market participants, nickel prices continued rising because the nickel inventories kept decreasing these days and China’s stainless steel prices have hiked for many days, which stimulated Shanghai nickel futures to rise for two days in a row.

Due to the high supply and demand of fundamentals, the short-term nickel price was expected to keep in a stable pattern.