Russia’s nickel exports down sharply in 2023 amid sanctions
Russia's shipments of nickel declined sharply in 2023 against deliveries in each of the previous two years, following sanctions, self-sanctioning and other restrictions put in place in the wake of the Russia-Ukraine war, according to an analysis of export data by S&P Global Commodity Insights.
Based on national import data collected in S&P Global Market Intelligence's Global Trade Analytics Suite (GTAS), Russia shipped around 91,250 mt in 2023, down 28% from 2021’s 127,100 mt, which was before its invasion of Ukraine. In 2022, Russia exported between 130,000 mt and 137,000 mt, according to importer data accumulated in GTAS.
The figures represent unwrought nickel with the 7502 HS code.
Nornickel, Russia’s sole exporter of class 1 nickel that meets a purity standard of 99.8%, produces roughly 150,000 mt of nickel in Russia, S&P Global Commodity Insights estimates.
In 2023, the EU halved imports of Russian nickel from 2021’s 59,000 mt and the US reduced imports by 86% to 638 mt, from 4,710 mt in 2021.
Supplies to China dropped materially too, by over 8,000 mt to 38,030 mt, but deliveries to Taiwan increased more than tenfold to 8,200 mt, with the combined total remaining stable, at 46,230 mt.
Over the past two years, Russia has also doubled nickel exports to Brazil to 1,570 mt and grown shipments to Turkey by 50% to 1,900 mt, although these gains, and others including to Singapore and Mexico, could not offset the overall shortfall.
The comparisons are made to the pre-war year of 2021 to track any changes and trends that have emerged as a result of the markets’ adaptation to sanctions, self-sanctioning, and other restrictions, as well as preemptive changes in sales and procurement policies.
According to the data analysis, the geography of Russia’s nickel exports has shifted massively from west to east.
In 2021, some 52% of the world’s imports of Russian nickel ended in the EU, non-EU Europe -- including Turkey -- and North America. Last year, this share contracted to 35%, while China and other parts of Asia absorbed around 55% of the total.
"Sanctions imposed by the US, EU and UK on Russia pushed Nornickel to redirect its European and US supplies of refined class 1 nickel, which can be used to produce battery-grade nickel sulfate, to China," said Jason Sappor, senior analyst for metals and mining research at S&P Global Commodity Insights.
"China overtook the Netherlands [that has a major EU port in Rotterdam, with much of the commodities going in there subsequently re-exported] as the main destination for Russia's nickel exports in 2023," Sappor said, adding that the key challenge for Nornickel is the fact that China is rapidly building its own refined class 1 nickel capacity and is also gaining increased access to cheaper battery-grade nickel sulfate intermediate products from Indonesia.
In December, Nornickel revised its estimate of the global 2023 nickel market surplus to over 250,000 mt, from 200,000 mt previously, on lower-than-expected nickel use in the battery sector. The company also reduced its estimate of the overall primary nickel use in 2023 to 3.13 million mt, from its earlier projection of 3.22 million mt.