All 8,475 tonnes entered warehouses in Shanghai, with Shanghai XinYi seeing the most metal enter its sheds at 7,834 tonnes.
“The inflowing stocks were mainly bonded stocks – which have been entering SHFE-approved warehouses since the 2% nickel import tax was announced in the middle of December last year,” Metal Bulletin senior nickel analyst Ellie Wang said.
China increased its import tax for nickel from 1% to 2% at the beginning of 2018, which encouraged market participants who hold stocks in the bonded area to transfer them to the domestic market to avoid the higher tax.
As a result, stocks in the Shanghai-bonded area have sharply declined.
Metal Bulletin’s assessment of nickel stocks in Shanghai-bonded warehouses decreased to a historic low of 28,000-34,000 tonnes at the end of December, down 22.5% from the previous month and 61.7% on an annual basis.
Copper stocks also up
- Deliverable copper stocks at SHFE-approved warehouses rose by 6,988 tonnes or 4.4% over the past week to 167,429 tonnes as of Friday.
- Metal Bulletin last assessed Shanghai-bonded copper stocks at 465,000-475,000 tonnes on January 2, up by 5,000 tonnes on both a monthly and yearly basis.
- The most-traded March copper contract on the SHFE closed at 54,800 yuan ($8,422) per tonne on Friday, up by 270 yuan per tonne from the previous Friday’s closing price.
Tin inventories dip, other base metals higher
- SHFE tin stocks dropped by 3 tonnes or 0.1% over the past week to 5,318 tonnes.
- SHFE aluminium stocks rose by 7,731 tonnes or 1% over the past week to stand at 773,941 tonnes.
- Zinc stocks went up by 1,668 tonnes or 2.2% from a week ago to 79,051 tonnes.
- SHFE lead stocks increased by 0.8% or 323 tonnes week on week to 42,139 tonnes.