Demand for battery-grade nickel is expected to surge, tripling by 2030, according to Benchmark Mineral Intelligence. This growth will largely be due to mid- and high-performance electric vehicles (EVs) in Western markets.
A senior nickel analyst at Benchmark, Jorge Uzcategui, particularly noted that:
“China will see growth too, but it won’t match the pace in ex-China regions.”
Despite lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries dominating the Chinese market, nickel-based chemistries are set to hold a significant share globally. Their superior performance and limited LFP supply chains outside China support this trend.
EV Sales Stall, Nickel Demand Slows
Battery nickel demand has faced setbacks in 2024 due to slower-than-expected EV sales in Western markets. Inflation and high interest rates have made EVs less competitive compared to internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles.
This slowdown has pushed automakers to delay or revise their EV targets in Europe and North America. It has also led to gigafactory project cancellations, reducing North America’s 2030 battery supply forecast by 3% and Europe’s by 10%, according to Benchmark’s data.
China, however, has seen record EV sales, with almost 1.2 million units sold in October alone. But most of these vehicles use LFP batteries, limiting the impact on nickel demand.
Additionally, battery producers are leaning toward mid-nickel NCM chemistries. These offer better thermal stability and reduce the risk of overheating, making them more attractive amid low cobalt and manganese prices.
Nickel Poised for a Comeback
Despite current challenges, the long-term outlook for battery nickel remains strong. Although weak demand and expanded supply have pulled nickel prices to their lowest levels since 2020, demand for battery-grade nickel is projected to grow 27% year-on-year in 2024.
Looking ahead, nickel-based chemistries are expected to dominate, capturing 85% of battery cell production capacity outside China by 2030. High-nickel chemistries will play a growing role as EV technology advances.
- Benchmark forecasts that over 50% of nickel demand growth by 2030 will come from batteries. By the end of the decade, battery nickel demand could hit 1.5 million tonnes annually.
Price Rollercoaster: Will Oversupply Keep Nickel Down?
With the projected growing demand for nickel, how about the metal’s prices?
In the third quarter of 2024, nickel prices started on a downward trend. After reaching a high of $21,615 per metric ton in May, the price fell to $17,357 by July 1. In August, nickel prices hovered between $16,150 and $16,500 before climbing to $17,136 on August 27.
However, in early September, prices dropped again, reaching a low of $15,741 on September 10. This was close to the year’s lowest price of $15,668, recorded in February. Despite this, prices surged in late September, peaking at $17,698 on October 1.
Oversupply from Indonesia
The main issue for nickel prices has been oversupply, especially from Indonesia. The country increased its mined nickel production by 99,000 metric tons in Q3. By the end of 2024, Indonesia is expected to increase production to 2.4 million metric tons, making up 57% of global output.
Indonesia has capitalized on its 2020 nickel ore export ban, drawing billions in foreign investment for its mining and EV supply chains. This strategic move has bolstered Indonesia’s dominance in the nickel market.
According to Adrian Gardner, principal analyst at Wood Mackenzie, Indonesia is set to account for 60-65% of global nickel mine production, solidifying its role as a key player in the industry. Gardner further noted that:
“We have seen on several occasions that, when Indonesia stopped or restarted ore exports and threatened to stop nickel pig iron and intermediate product exports, there was a reaction in nickel prices. The government sets the rules, and the rules are the tools.”
S&P Global Market Intelligence reveals a dramatic surge in Indonesia’s nickel ore imports from the Philippines. From January to August 2024, imports skyrocketed to 5.3 million metric tons, a massive leap from just 53,904 metric tons during the same period in 2023.
Although Indonesia dominates production, its quota system has made it difficult for Chinese smelters to secure a steady supply. This forced them to cut output temporarily. To keep up, Indonesian refiners turned to imports from the Philippines, the world’s second-largest nickel producer.
Despite relying heavily on China’s investment, Indonesia is looking to diversify its partnerships, particularly with Western countries. However, a new trade deal with China includes a $1.42 billion agreement between China’s GEM and Indonesia’s PT Vale to build a plant for processing battery-grade nickel.
Another major project involves China’s Huayou Cobalt, Ford, and PT Vale. They plan to invest $2.7 billion in a facility that will produce nickel for EV batteries.
More recently, China launched a $1.4 trillion debt swap to address its financial challenges and promote economic growth. It also plans to lower the deed tax for homebuyers to further stimulate the economy.
Challenges and Opportunities in Western Markets
In Canada, the government has committed C$46 billion to develop four EV battery plants. However, industry experts say this will require more raw materials than Canada can currently produce. The country may need up to 15 new mines to meet demand.
Europe faces its own challenges with the new Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), which taxes carbon-intensive imports. Some in the steel industry argue that CBAM won’t benefit them, as it only considers direct emissions.
Meanwhile, European steelmakers are increasing their reliance on nickel pig iron imports from Indonesia. This trend has led to production cuts in Europe as they struggle to compete with cheaper imports.
Ultimately, the global race for nickel and other critical minerals intensifies as countries seek energy independence. Amid all this is an emerging key player. Alaska Energy Metals Corporation (AEMC), a Canadian mining firm, is advancing its 23,000-acre Nikolai deposit to boost domestic nickel supply.
AEMC President Greg Beischer emphasizes the importance of a sustainable U.S. supply chain. The nickel junior’s top priorities include navigating fluctuating nickel prices and securing funding to advance its Nikolai project.
The company plans to complete an economic assessment by 2025. This initiative supports U.S. efforts to develop local sources of critical minerals, reducing dependence on foreign imports and strengthening domestic supply chains.
What’s Next for Nickel Prices and Demand?
China will continue to play a major role in the nickel market, both in supply and demand. Although China’s EV sector grew 32% year-on-year in the first nine months of 2024, it hasn’t been enough to offset weak demand in other sectors.
Nickel prices are expected to face continued pressure in the coming years due to a surplus. With a 5.8% annual growth rate in supply projected through 2028, producers may struggle to restart operations as prices remain flat.
Investors should closely watch developments in China and Western markets, as they will heavily influence nickel’s future. While short-term hurdles exist, battery nickel demand is poised for long-term growth. As EV adoption rises globally, nickel’s role in the energy transition will only strengthen.
Disclosure: Owners, members, directors, and employees of carboncredits.com have/may have stock or option positions in any of the companies mentioned: AEMC.
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More and more small and medium-sized businesses are hearing the same question from their larger customers: What is your carbon footprint? That question now travels down entire supply chains, and it arrives next to tender requirements, certification criteria, and rising customer expectations.
The accounting differences that decide whether your nature investment shows up in inventory, in BVCM, or nowhere at all.
The question reaches a procurement team about three weeks before the next sustainability committee meeting. Someone has read about insetting. Someone else has just signed off on an offset purchase. The CSO wants to know if the two are interchangeable. The answer is no, and the GHG Protocol Land Sector and Removals Standard is the reason why.
This article walks through what each term means at audit-grade specificity, what the standards actually say about how each gets counted, and how to decide which tool fits which target. The insetting vs offsetting question is one of the most-searched in corporate climate strategy, and one of the most poorly answered. By the end of this piece, you should be able to brief a committee on the difference without notes.
The two definitions, in plain English
Offsetting means buying carbon credits generated outside your value chain and retiring them against your residual emissions. The reduction happens somewhere else, financed by you, and the credit is the receipt.
Insetting means investing in emission reductions or removals inside your own value chain, typically with suppliers, where the reduction is directly linked to the products and services you buy. The reduction happens inside the boundary of your Scope 3 inventory, and the accounting treatment is fundamentally different.
The shorthand from the University of Oxford’s Nature-based Insetting Initiative is useful: insetting is what you do with the supply chain you have; offsetting is what you do with the supply chain you do not have.
What the GHG Protocol Land Sector Standard actually says
The GHG Protocol Land Sector and Removals Standard, finalised in 2024 after a multi-year pilot, sets the rules for how land-based emission reductions and removals enter corporate inventories. The Standard distinguishes between inventory accounting (Scope 1, 2, and 3) and project or intervention accounting (a separate methodology for crediting).
For insetting, the practical implication is that supplier-level interventions, when properly measured and attributed, can reduce your Scope 3 category 1 (purchased goods and services) emissions in your inventory. The reduction is not a credit retired against the inventory; it is a lower inventory number, period.
For offsetting, the credit is retired separately. It can be reported as a contribution toward a net-zero claim under the SBTi Beyond Value Chain Mitigation framework or as part of a VCMI Carbon Integrity claim, but it does not lower the inventory number.
A practical consequence: if your Science Based Target requires a 50% absolute reduction in Scope 3 emissions by 2030, insetting moves you toward the target. Offsetting does not. This single point of difference reshapes the procurement decision.
When insetting counts toward Scope 3 (and when it does not)
Insetting counts toward Scope 3 only when several conditions are met:
- The intervention must occur with an entity in your value chain.
- The emissions reduction or removal must be measured against a defensible baseline.
- The reduction must be attributed to your share of that supplier’s output, not double-counted with other buyers.
- It must follow the inventory accounting rules in the GHG Protocol Land Sector Standard, not the project accounting rules used to generate credits.
The most common failure mode is double counting. If your supplier sells the same reduction as a credit on the voluntary market and also reports it to you as a Scope 3 reduction, the math breaks. The Standard requires you to address this risk, typically by purchasing and retiring the supplier-issued credit as part of your inventory or by contractual provisions that prevent the supplier from selling the reduction twice.
When insetting does not count toward Scope 3: when the intervention sits with a supplier you do not buy from, when the baseline is not defensible, when the attribution is unclear, or when the documentation does not survive audit. Those cases default to Beyond Value Chain Mitigation, which is still useful but operates on a different ledger.
The procurement and supplier engagement question
Insetting is harder than offsetting. That is the unfashionable truth most buyers eventually confront. Offsetting is a transaction; insetting is a relationship.
To run an insetting program, you need supplier mapping precise enough to know which farms or facilities sit at which Scope 3 boundary. You need an engagement model that gets suppliers to participate, which usually requires multi-year commitments and shared economics. You need an MRV architecture that measures the right things and produces audit-ready documentation. And you need a contractual structure that prevents double counting and protects both sides.
The trade-off you receive in return is significant. Reductions count against your inventory rather than your residual. Supplier relationships deepen, which protects sourcing continuity. Yield and quality improvements often follow regenerative interventions, which reduces your input cost over time. And the regulatory file, under CSRD, CSDDD, EUDR, and the SBTi FLAG Guidance, is materially stronger.
Choosing the right tool for the right target
A practical decision rule. If your target is a science-based Scope 3 reduction and you operate in a FLAG sector or source FLAG commodities, insetting is the structurally correct tool. If your target is a net-zero claim that includes neutralising hard-to-abate residual emissions outside your value chain, BVCM via high-integrity offsets is the structurally correct tool. Most companies with material Scope 3 exposure need both, in different proportions, sequenced over time.
The sequencing matters. Insetting takes longer to stand up but produces a permanent reduction in the inventory. Offsetting can be transacted faster but does not change the inventory and now sits under tighter claim restrictions. Treat them as complementary tools with different jobs, not as substitutes. The Accountability Framework Initiative and the IUCN Global Standard for Nature-based Solutions both provide useful guardrails for the insetting side, with biodiversity, human rights, and benefit-sharing requirements that go beyond carbon math.
If you are mapping a Scope 3 reduction roadmap and need to scope which interventions count toward your inventory versus which sit in Beyond Value Chain Mitigation, the carbon and sustainability experts at Carbon Credit Capital can help you structure a nature-based supply chain investment program that fits your FLAG exposure, your target architecture, and your audit horizon. Schedule a consultation.
Net zero is often described as a balancing act: cut what you can, account for the rest, and reach zero on the ledger. That framing is useful, but it leaves something out. It treats every tonne of carbon as interchangeable and every route to zero as equally sound, while the science tells a more specific story.
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