The three-month nickel price on the London Metal Exchange was lower at the close of trading on Thursday September 12, while considerable tightness in the metal’s forward spreads prompted market questions of prospective deliveries into LME warehouses to ease trading conditions.
Despite moderately low volumes at just over 6,000 lots exchanged by the close, nickel’s benchmark cash/three-month spread significantly narrowed over the afternoon, trading in a backwardation of $169 per tonne at one point, before widening to its current level of $163 per tonne.
The spread was one of the widest in nickel’s exchange history, with the forward curve exhibiting its steepest cash premium since July 2007, when the backwardation reached $193 per tonne.
Meanwhile, buying momentum in nickel cooled over the day, with the metal’s futures price…