The three-month futures price of nickel on the London Metal Exchange (LME) surged by US$604/ton yesterday (May 27), closing at US$17,288/ton, and the spot price also rose greatly by US$604/ton to US$17,860/ton, hitting a new high this month.

The current average nickel price of this month is US$17,543/ton, higher than the US$16,507/ton in April.

Meanwhile, LME’s market inventory of nickel dropped by 567 tons to 247,782 tons. The cumulative decrease in May has reached 14,253 tons so far.

According to market participants, nickel prices were driven to soar by strong US economic data, the ISSF's estimated growth in global stainless steel demand by 9-10% this year, as well as Chinese mills’ high scheduling of stainless steel production. In the short term, nickel prices were expected to keep stable.