[ferro-alloys.com] At present, the total amount of the discovered Laterite-Nickle-Ore is 12.6 billion tons throughout the world. The average of the Nickle grade is 1.28%.

Our surrounding countries has more than 12.14 million tons nickle ore reserves, including: Russia(6.1 million tons), Indonesia(3.9 million tons), Philippine(1.1 million tons), Burma(0.92 million tons) and Vietnam(0.12 million tons). They have 16% of total nickle ore reserve in the world.

The Laterite-Nickle-Ores are mainly distributed in Indonesia, Philippine, and Burma.The quality of Indonesian ore is best throughout the world.

China is short of Laterite-Nickle-Ores.It contains only 9.6% of the total nickle ores. Besides, the cost of the exploration is high in domestic. So, China is not competitive in the Laterite-Nickle-Ores field.

So, 80% of nickle ores in China are imported from abroad. Before forbidding concentrate export in 2014, Indonesia exported the largest amount of nickle ore and bauxite ore to China. In 2012, the import volume of nickle ore occupied 54% of total trading volume between China and Indonesia.

Influenced by export limitation policy in Indonesia, Philippine nickle ore export volume had surpassed Indonesian export volume. In 2017, most of the Chinese imported nickle ores were from Philippines, and occupied 96% of total volume. It provided nearly 400 thousands tons of nickle metal.

• [Editor:王可]