At the end of week 11, nickel hit a new record because of tight supply and increasing production of stainless steel worldwide. The three-month nickel price on the LME soared to USD 48,500/tn on 16 March 2007, while cash prices reached USD 50,000/tn, over three times during the last 12 months, creating a peak historically last week as buyers assumed that supplies will be short indefinitely. The stainless steel industry, which consumes almost 70% of nickel consumption, continues to grow, but unfortunately the supply hasn’t seemed to increase at the same level with the demand. LME shows that nickel stocks dropped further last week to just over 3500 on 16 March. It is predicted that the nickel prices will go even higher with some alloy surcharges in May
