The London Metal Exchange suspended its nickel trading yesterday after it hit a huge record of US$100,000 per tonne.
This historic figure which has almost tripled in value in the last week has sparked concerns for the global nickel supply as Russian sanctions continue.
In the last week, record-breaking prices have not stopped climbing, with Friday's 4th of March figure at $30,000 per tonne, and on Monday a 61 percent increase to $48,550 per tonne.
Around 7am Tuesday morning, Nickel had climbed to $82,195 per tonne and attained its absolute record of $101,365 per tonne one hour later.
New Caledonia nickel mine Photo: AFP
President of the employer federation, MEDEF, in New Caledonia, Mimsy Daly, said these records were expected.
Nickel comprises nearly 90 percent of exports from New Caledonia.
"New Caledonia is the fourth largest exporter of Nickel with Russia in third. Thus obviously what is happening in Russia will have a major impact on the New Caledonian mining sector," Daly said.
"European buyers will rely on other sources of nickel, for example, the Philippines, New Caledonia, or Indonesia."
Russia is the third largest exporter of nickel, producing seven percent of nickel for the world with its factory in Norilsk.
New Caledonia is ready.
At the moment miners are negotiating with providers and clients that are in southeast Asia.
"New Caledonia export several types of minerals, the raw type and the transformed. So we have two types in our exports," Daly said.
We feed our first market, which is China and Korea, which supply the market for electrical manufacturing. We also have the market for electrical batteries and contracts with Tesla."
