Nickel production is projected to increase by over 8 percent a year in the following years despite uncertainties in policy implementation and limitations in project development.
“We expect Philippine production to continue rising over the coming years although high levels of policy uncertainty could constrain project development, posing downside risks to our forecasts. We forecast nickel production to average 8.6 percent year-on-year growth over 2020 to 2028,” Fitch Solutions Macro Research was quoted as saying in a BusinessWorld report.
Moreover, it was also projected that the country will reclaim its spot as the mineral’s top producer following Indonesia’s export ban, effective this year. Fitch Solutions reported that most of the supply will come from SR Metals, Inc., Global Ferronickel Holdings, Inc., Nickel Asia Corp., and CTP Construction and Mining Corp.
In the global market, however, production declined by 15.7 percent because of the export ban despite significant production growth in other major nickel producers like Australia, Canada, and Russia. Moreover, it was noted that production also declined by an average of 12 percent due to the open-pit mining ban.
“In the longer term, we forecast global nickel production to grow by an annual average rate of 1.6 percent year-on-year over 2020 to 2028, a significant slowdown from the 5.8 percent year-on-year average achieved over 2011 to 2019, which was boosted by higher nickel prices at the time and strong Indonesian output before another export ban in 2014.” Fitch Solutions noted in the report.
