Largest Supply Glut In A Decade Crashes Nickel Prices

Last year,  the nickel markets came into the limelight courtesy of the historic nickel short squeeze that sent nickel prices soaring to an astonishing $100,000 per tonne. The massive surge doubled the previous all-time high over the course of one morning and plunged the London Metal Exchange into an existential crisis.

And, just like the famous copper squeeze of more than a century ago, the nickel market snafu was largely linked to enormous short positions held by a single man: Chinese metal trader Xiang Guangda, the founder of China-based Tsingshan…