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explainer · nickel

Mined at 1–3%. Refined to 99.8%. Built in at 8%.

Nickel is mined at a few per cent, smelted or leached into intermediates, and mostly ends up in stainless steel at about 8%. A smaller and faster-growing share goes into battery cathodes.

By MN Consulting. Figures checked 1 November 2026. Nickel key figures and sources

6 stages

Six stages, from mine to stainless steel

Select a stage to see what happens there, who does it, and which record moves with the material. The bars show nickel content by mass on a log scale.

Nickel content is shown as elemental nickel (Ni) by mass. Intermediate grades vary widely by route.

watch

Nickel traceability: mine to EV battery

A walkthrough of one nickel batch on the battery route, with its digital passport building up at each handover.

A walkthrough of our interactive nickel explainer. It follows one batch through seven handovers: mine, concentrator, smelter and refinery, precursor and cathode, cell maker, battery pack and electric vehicle. Alongside, a digital passport fills in the batch ID, carbon footprint, battery passport readiness, mass balance, assurance checks and chain of custody events. 58 seconds, no sound. Figures in the video are illustrative, not from any real operation. Download the video (MP4)

scale

Where nickel comes from

~3.9 Mt

of nickel was mined in 2025, up 5% on 2024. USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026, 2025 estimate

67%

of mined nickel came from Indonesia, about 2.6 Mt. USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026, our calculation, 2025 estimate

54%

of identified nickel resources are laterite; 35% are sulphide. USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026, 2025

189,000 t

market surplus in the first nine months of 2025. International Nickel Study Group, via USGS, Jan–Sep 2025

battery route

About 15% of nickel takes the battery route

From MHP or matte, nickel is refined to sulphate and follows the same path as lithium and cobalt.

precursor

Nickel sulphate

Battery-grade sulphate (22% Ni) is co-precipitated with cobalt and manganese into precursor.

cathode

NMC cathode

Nickel-rich NMC 811 cathode is about 48% nickel by mass.

vehicle

Electric car

A long-range EV with a nickel-rich pack carries roughly 30 to 50 kg of nickel.

traceability

Where the record usually breaks

At the smelterIndonesian industrial parks feed ore from many mines into shared furnaces and HPAL lines, so lot-level origin needs records at the weighbridge.
At the stainless millNPI, ferronickel, class 1 nickel and scrap are melted together in one heat. Mill certificates show the chemistry, not the sources.
On the battery routeMHP from several plants is blended at the refinery. The EU battery passport will need those links kept.

Our traceability rollouts link these records, from mine lot to finished product, so a claim about origin holds up when a customer or regulator asks for it.

Planning a traceability rollout, or one that has stalled after the pilot? Book a 30-minute call.

Sources

Production figures are USGS estimates for 2025. Stage ranges are typical industry values, rounded, not data for a specific plant.