With an annual traded value of around $35 billion, nickel would probably be categorized by most as a medium-sized commodity. For the past few decades it has really had quite a low profile, perhaps due to its mainly industrial use as an alloying agent in stainless steel production. But excitement and chatter has been building around nickel sulfate in particular, due to its critical role in battery chemistry.

S&P Global Platts Pricing Director for APAC Metal Markets Julien Hall talks to Platts battery metals experts Joyce Zhang and Jianong Ong for an overview of nickel use in electric vehicle batteries, the main fundamental drivers in the market, and how the pricing behaves, to get a better sense of how hot the nickel market really is.