Nickel Rises to 19-Year High as Supply Is Disrupted (Securibourse)

par melio, vendredi 15 décembre 2006, 08:00 (il y a 6553 jours) @ mareva

Nickel Rises to 19-Year High as Supply Is Disrupted (Correct)

By Chanyaporn Chanjaroen

(Corrects production-deficit forecast in fifth paragraph.)

Dec. 14 (Bloomberg) -- Nickel rose to its highest price since at least 1987 in London on speculation that disruptions at mines and smelters will keep production lagging behind demand through 2007.

Cia. Vale do Rio Doce, which acquired Canadian nickel producer Inco Ltd. this year, said today that its Indonesian unit may miss an output target for 2006 because of reduced power supply. French nickel miner Eramet SA has lost production since September because of a strike by miners. Prices have more than doubled in the past year.

``Gains are supply driven,'' Catherine Virga, a New York- based analyst at CPM Group, said in a telephone interview. ``The market will be in a deficit next year, extending to 2008.''

Nickel for delivery in three months gained $1,500, or 4.5 percent, to $34,750 a metric ton on the London Metal Exchange. Earlier, the metal used in stainless steel rose to $34,875 a ton, topping the previous 19-year high set on Dec. 5 by $374.

PT International Nickel Indonesia, the country's largest nickel producer, may miss this year's output target of 71,000 tons as lower-than-average rainfall since October reduced electricity at the company's hydroelectric power generator, the company said today in an e-mailed statement. BHP Billiton Ltd., the world's largest mining company, said Dec. 11 there will be a combined production shortfall this year and next of 57,000 tons.

``Supply-wise we haven't seen any significant increase,'' Mo Ahmadzadeh, president of Mitsui Bussan Commodities Ltd. in New York, said today by phone.

Aluminum Rises

Aluminum rose to the highest in more than six months as stockpiles of the metal used in beverage cans and cars dwindled, spurring speculation that supplies are tightening.

Inventory of the metal tracked by the LME has dropped 13 percent since the end of June, according to exchange data. The production deficit widened to 328,000 tons in the 10 months to October, from 167,000 tons in the first nine months of the year, the Ware, England-based World Bureau of Metals Statistics said yesterday.

``There's not much of the metal around at the moment,'' said Adam Rowley, a London-based analyst at Macquarie Bank Ltd., Australia's largest securities firm. Prices may rise to $3,000 a ton in the next few months, Rowley said.

Aluminum for delivery in three months gained $64, or 2.3 percent, to $2,864 a ton on the LME, after earlier reaching $2,875, the highest since May 23.

Prices of aluminum, the most-traded metal on the LME, have gained 25 percent this year, lagging behind copper, zinc and nickel, as output grew in China, the world's largest producer.

Production in the U.S., the second-biggest source of aluminum, dropped 7.9 percent last month after the closing of a smelter in Maryland owned by Alcoa Inc., according to the Arlington, Virginia-based Aluminum Association.

To contact the reporter on this story: Chanyaporn Chanjaroen in London at cchanjaroen@bloomberg.net
Last Updated: December 14, 2006 19:15 EST