Nickel Cathode, Briquettes & Pellets (Class 1, 99.8%+)

Class 1 nickel at 99.80% min to LME and ASTM B39: full-plate and cut cathode, briquettes and pellets

Class 1 nickel is refined nickel at 99.80% Ni minimum, the grade deliverable on the LME contract and specified in ASTM B39, which also caps cobalt at 0.15% and sets low limits for copper, iron, carbon and sulphur. It is a different product from Class 2 nickel — nickel pig iron and ferronickel, which carry far less nickel and much more iron — and those are not on this page. Within Class 1 the buyer chooses a form to suit the process. Full-plate cathodes, around 1 m square, are melted by alloy and stainless producers; cathode cut into squares of roughly 1 x 1 inch to 4 x 4 inch fits plating baskets, induction furnaces and dosing equipment; briquettes, pressed from nickel powder and sintered, and pellets from carbonyl refining are free-flowing, dose easily into a melt or a dissolver, and are the forms most battery precursor plants dissolve to make nickel sulphate. Brand decides the price: every form is traded by producer brand, and metal from an LME-registered brand trades at LME plus a premium, while off-brand or unregistered nickel is bought on its own certificate of analysis at a discount. Cathode is shipped in strapped bundles of about 1–2 MT, and briquettes and pellets in 250 kg steel drums or 1 MT bulk bags on pallets. On the trade, UN Comtrade 2024 export declarations under HS 7502 (unwrought nickel, unalloyed and alloyed together) sum to USD 9.55 billion and 524,817 MT across the reporting countries, led by China (USD 2.07 billion; 123,229 MT), Canada (USD 1.77 billion; 98,309 MT), Indonesia (USD 862 million; 43,640 MT), the UK (USD 768 million; 34,527 MT) and the Netherlands (USD 652 million; 33,230 MT), the last two largely exchange-warehouse and trading flows rather than refinery output.

The buyers are stainless steel and nickel-alloy melt shops, superalloy and foundry producers, electroplating and surface-finishing plants, and battery precursor and nickel sulphate producers, in the Gulf, South Asia, Southeast Asia, East Asia, East Africa and Turkiye. CBIL is a commodity brokerage company and brokers Class 1 nickel cathode, briquettes and pellets from refinery and trader parcels of Canadian, Norwegian, Japanese, Malagasy and Indonesian origin. Every offer is worked against the producer's certificate of analysis, the brand certificate and a certificate of origin, and against producer or warehouse documents and inspection rather than a seller's word: nickel has seen cargoes sold as metal that held other material when the containers were opened, so independent weighing, sampling and a check of drum and bundle contents at stuffing by SGS, Bureau Veritas or Intertek is part of a normal contract. Nickel moves in 20-foot containers on FOB, CFR and CIF terms. Send the form and size, brand requirements, your cobalt, copper and sulphur limits, tonnage and discharge port, and the desk matches refinery parcels against them.

Excluded origins are not offered, including product re-exported, blended or re-processed through a third country. Every lot moves with a certificate of origin naming the producing plant, mine or grower country, and nothing is quoted before the seller and loading point are known.