I would think there is a lead and lag effect with the supply demand balance at play here. Many operations are in fact cutting back or even closing all together with care and maintenance programs announced recently.

Now there is also the fact that demand is likely fallen off the map if we can believe the "world economic recession" camp. Yet we see nickel at lows we have not seen in many years. So depsite the low prices the buyers are hesitant to order Nickel. We know SS plants are not re-ordering like they should be. That fact holds the LME inventory levels up for now. We must wait and see the little buying there is draw down and combine that with limited supply and you should start to see tightening.

We saw the same thing when all the new mines and new supply was rushing to come online for those crazy 20 dollar prcies for Nickel in April May 2007....It took a while for that to take hold and we saw the price fall off as supply came in. Now we wait for the reverse.

Vicious cycles these commodities. Oh yeah throw in cheap energy and it's simply a matter of time before the world is off to tthe races again....we just need access to money. See the interest rate cut announced in Britain today? A 1.5 % cut. Lowest rates since 1950