Nickelis a kind of silver-white metal, because it has good mechanical strength ,ductility, refractory high temperature resistance, high chemical stability, non-oxidation in the air and other characteristics, so it is a very important non-ferrous metal raw materials,which is  used to manufacture stainless steel, high-nickel alloy steel and alloy structural steel, it is widely used in flying. Machines, radar, missiles, tanks, ships, spaceships, nuclear reactors and other military manufacturing industries. In the civil industry, nickel is often made into structural steel, acid-resistant steel, heat-resistant steel and other large quantities of machinery manufacturing. Nickel can also be used as ceramic pigments and anticorrosion coatings. Nickel-cobalt alloy is a kind of permanent magnetic material. It is widely used in electronic remote control, atomic energy industry and ultrasonic technology. In chemical industry, it is often used as hydrogenation catalyst.

  1. Supply analysis of nickel

  China's nickel supply consists of two parts, one is new nickel concentrate supply, which accounts for 72.9% of the total tungsten supply, the other is from recycled nickel 27.1%.

   China's nickel concentrate production in 2005 is 60,000 tons (metal), of which Jinchuan Group concentrate production accounts for more than 80% of the national concentrate production. It is expected that the output of nickel concentrate will reach 70 thousand tons in the next 06 years. China's nickel reserves have hardly increased in the past decade, and the increase in output in recent years mainly depends on Jinchuan, Xinjiang Karatong and Huangshan. Because of the lacking of new mines , it is almost impossible to increase the supply of domestic raw materials in large quantities.

  Another supply of nickel comes from the recycling of spent nickel. The output of recycled in the world is nearly half of the total primary nickel output. However, the output of recycled in China only accounts for 27.1% of the total output. Therefore, there is still much room for China to grow in the recycling of spent nickel.

   2. Nickel demand analysis

   Nickel is widely used in various industries of the national economy because of its good mechanical strength and ductility, refractory and high temperature resistance, high chemical stability and non-oxidation in the air. It is mainly used in the casting of stainless steel, special alloy steel, electroplating materials, battery materials and so on. 

   In 2005, the world's apparent nickel consumption was about 1.272 million tons, 65% of which was used in the manufacture of stainless steel, the rest for special steel, alloys, batteries, electroplating agent coinage and other industries. China's nickel used for stainless steel production accounted for only 50% of the total output, lower than the world level. 

   With the development of economic construction and iron and steel industry, the demand for nickel is increasing, and there is a big difference between the output and consumption  in China because of the limited production. In 2005, the output in China was 102,700 tons, and the consumption was 182,700 tons. The gap between supply and demand was solved by importing 80,000 tons. In the future, the rapid development of stainless steel industry in China will lead to the consumption of nickel. At the same time, with the development of electronic industry and communication industry, the demand for small rechargeable batteries is also increasing rapidly. Among them, nickel-hydrogen batteries will develop fastest and become the mainstream of the market, gradually replacing nickel-cadmium batteries. In the future, the demand for nickel in China's domestic market is increasing.