Executive Summary

摘要

The main uncertain factor to the near-term outlook for the nickel market is undoubtedly Indonesian nickel ore supply. The government plans to ban nickel ore exports from 2014, but at present the market is discounting such a scenario. CRU has for a while assumed there will not be a complete cessation of Indonesian nickel ore exports in 2014 and we think the government is likely to increase the export tax from the current 20% to over 40% and/or allow only those companies committed to developing a downstream facility in Indonesia to continue exporting ore. But the timeframe for such decisions is unclear and could be affected by the fact that the country faces elections in Q2 2014.