There has been a lot of discussion lately about nickel use being changed to chrome use. I found an article from South Africa on this:

Stainless: High nickel prices turn industry on to chrome
March 16, 2008

The stainless steel industry was trying to cut nickel use in its production process due to the volatility and high price of the metal, a senior industry figure said this week.

"The steel industry has a very clear strategy [of] reducing its dependence on nickel," Ian Christmas, the secretary-general of the International Iron and Steel Institute, told a mining summit in London."Stainless steel producers are pushing very hard to replace austenitic steel with ferrotic steel, which has a very small amount of nickel" and was chromium based, he said.

Nickel accounts for more than 60 percent of the cost of making austenitic steel, also known as 300 series stainless steel, the most widely used high-grade steel.

Nickel rose to a record high of $51 800 (R4.2 million at yesterday's exchange rate) a ton last year, but lost about 50 percent of its value in the following three months. Nickel futures are now about $33 000 a ton after the high and volatile price triggered production cutbacks.

"The price of nickel has pushed a lot of innovation," Christmas said.