Nickel Dashboard Is policy risk fully discounted in last month’s weakness?

Research evidence excerpt

Nickel Dashboard Is policy risk fully discounted in last month’s weakness?

J P M O R G A N Asia Pacific Equity Research

10 June 2026

Nickel Dashboard

Is policy risk fully discounted in last month’s weakness?

LME nickel prices have had an eventful 5 weeks, reaching highs of ~USD19,200 ASEAN Metals, Indo Auto &

on concerns driven by Indonesia's centralized export policy. LME prices quickly Consumer Research

retraced back to ~USD18,200/t in the last 5 days, as Indonesia looks to increase Benny Kurniawan, CFA AC

quotas for commodities (nickel ore & coal) to raise gov’t revenues through (62-21) 5291 8024

royalties. Interestingly, both realized ore and intermediary prices (NPI & nickel benny.kurniawan@jpmorgan.com

sulfate) remained flat during the same time period, suggesting that the repricing in PT J.P. Morgan Sekuritas Indonesia

LME is really forward looking. Following the gov’t decision to exclude minerals Lyndon Fagan

from gross-split PSC mechanism, the elephant in the room today is how much (61-2) 9003-8648

lyndon.fagan@jpmorgan.com

quota will be given in 2H26 and how will it impact ore prices. Our initial J.P. Morgan Securities Australia Limited

assumption now is for gov’t to increase RKAB permits by 30-40mn to 290-300mn Anuja Mandvekar

wmt (vs 260-270mn earlier), largely for limonite as saprolite availability remains (91-22) 6157-3369

limited. This in turn should increase global nickel supply by 100-125kt vs JPM’s anuja.mandvekar@jpmorgan.com

expected balance of ~110kt this year. We believe most of the supply addition will J.P. Morgan India Private Limited

be geared towards low grade limonite ores rather than saprolite, as 1) high grade

saprolite availability is already limited and 2) capacity addition from this point

onwards will be HPALs which use limonite.