None of this is to deny that today's nickel consumption is mostly very robust. Plating demand may be weak, but stainless output continues to race ahead. Thanks to growth of 21 percent in the third quarter and nearly as much in the fourth, world production will be up by a startling 11.8 percent for the year as a whole. Despite this tremendous expansion, products are leaving the mills and being absorbed at a brisk rate by end-users, and there is little sign of indigestion in the distribution pipeline. US servicenter inventories remain at healthy (ie moderate) levels, as do their counterparts in Japan and Germany. And warehouse inventories in Wuxi paint a tidy picture for flat rolled stainless sheet in China.
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