I haven't the time to go hunting, but I wonder what the production costs of the big low-cost mines are these days... their $1-$2/lb costs of a few years ago have certainly increased significantly in recent years, so they might be in the $3-$4+ range. They can make a profit at almost any nickel price, but the big mines cannot handle nickel demand by themselves, they have to be supported by at least some of the mid and low tier producers. How much production gets shut down at sustained $9 nickel is hard to say...

The good part about having lower nickel prices is that it should help stimulate demand in the stainless steel markets again and this will help eat up some (or all!) of the oversupply of nickel.

At any rate, as long as nickel prices recover by the end of this year, that's the main thing... we can weather weak prices for the summer and fall at our lower levels of production without impacting net return from Redstone/McWatters too much. Maybe by then LME inventories will decline and nickel will shoot back up over $10 again.

Wish I had a crystal ball.