ShouChuang Futures: Indonesia imposes a super profit tax in advance, nickel prices open high and then decline

Yesterday, Indonesia’s finance minister said that President Prabowo had approved on Wednesday the imposition of export duties on coal and nickel, with the specific tax rates still under discussion. Indonesia has been considering a windfall tax on commodities, because the war in Iran has pushed up oil prices, leading to increasingly severe budget pressure for Indonesia. Late last night, the nickel price opened higher and moved above 138,000, up more than 2%; however, it later showed a pattern of opening high and trading lower. Today, the nickel price continued to weaken and trend downward, and in the afternoon it even dived, giving back all of the earlier gains. At present, there are many types of Indonesian nickel products. Among them, the profit from nickel wet-process intermediate products is the highest. It is expected that the windfall tax will not be “one-size-fits-all”; most likely, different tax rates will be set for different products. Indonesia has raised the nickel production costs multiple times through policy measures. Generally, this would provide some support to the nickel price, but the upside room for nickel prices will mainly depend on demand performance. Currently, the outlook for the peak season does not look very optimistic, and it is expected that nickel prices will remain range-bound and consolidate between 135,000. (China Founder Futures)