Chief Executive Officer, London Metal Exchange, The London Metal Exchange Limited
London Metal Exchange CEO on nickel prices
London Metal Exchange CEO Matthew Chamberlain talks nickel's surge in the face of economic turmoil in Russia.Matthew chamberlain, chief executive of the London metal exchange to discuss these unprecedented move. You know, chaos ...
About Matthew Chamberlain
Matthew Chamberlain, CEO of the London Metal Exchange, stated in May 2025 that uncertainty over potential US tariffs on copper has created an arbitrage opportunity, with traders buying untaxed metal in Asia and shipping it to the United States before tariffs are imposed. He noted that this activity has led to some de-stocking in Asia and trans-Pacific shipments, describing the LME’s global network as enabling such trades. Regarding competition, Chamberlain said that while exchanges compete, initiatives like the Shanghai Futures Exchange opening to foreign investors are positive for the global industry, as they create more arbitrage opportunities. Chamberlain has previously emphasized the LME’s role in promoting responsible sourcing. He said the exchange has introduced requirements that metals must be ethically sound, not just metallurgically sound, and has implemented rules barring metal linked to child labor or conflict finance. On sustainability, he stated that metals must be sourced responsibly to be part of the solution for the energy transition, and the LME has partnered with Metalshub to bring transparency to the carbon footprint of traded metals.
Transcript (8 segments)
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Reporter0:08
So nickel prices are rising again after trading at its lower limits in the past days. Nickel surged 15% on the London Metal Exchange and hit its upper limit. Nickel made a chaotic return to the LME last week after the venue suspended trading, yes, suspended trading for six days. A controversial move to a broken market which saw the price of nickel go vertical and trade at over $100,000 a ton. Matthew Chamberlain, chief executive of the London Metal Exchange, to discuss these unprecedented moves. You know, chaos doesn't begin to cover this, it's true, no exaggeration, the nickel market broke, literally broke. It was up more than two and a half times in just over a day, billions in losses, many still picking up the pieces here. What did happen and what is still the fallout from this and I will say, I am letting you off easy just getting you to explain it and get it off your back right now.
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Matthew Chamberlain1:12
Well I appreciate the opportunity. So I think we have two elements here. The first is a commodities market across other commodities which has quite given a scarcity of commodities and of course, given the horrific events in Ukraine and the natural implications of that for Russian commodities and commodity chains. But then, with nickel, there was another element which is that a large client of the market had built up a short position in the over-the-counter market, not on the exchange, I will emphasize, but the over-the-counter market and it became obvious as that price, as you say, hit $100,000, that there was a very real problem, which was not related to market fundamentals. It was related to this technical over-the-counter market and that's where we had to intervene.
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Reporter2:19
It is still unnerving as you know, you had to push pause, close the market, the thing is you canceled trades, that was unprecedented and traders are still angry at you for this. What do you say to them and I will add other people thought that look, given the systemic risk that this was a good defensive move, but what do you say?
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Matthew Chamberlain2:40
I absolutely understand the concern and the anger of many people given the actions that we had to take. I think the scale of our action, the importance of that action demonstrates just how important we felt this was and had we not done that, had we not closed the market and canceled trades we felt there would have been very systemic problems in terms of reducing a price disconnected from physical reality which would have been a huge problem for the physical market in terms of requiring aid at levels that wouldn't relate to real prices and probably causing some significant systemic problems. So I understand the anger and all I would say is I think the scale of the action we took demonstrates the scale of the problem that we had to deal with.
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Reporter3:38
And I understand that and makes me even more worried as we discuss systemic risks. Getting U.S. Intelligence for weeks that this invasion could happen was likely to happen, you and I both know the importance of Russia to the commodities market. What do you do now to make sure you are in more of a defensive position, remembering, this was not a natural disaster. This was telegraphed.
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Matthew Chamberlain4:04
Well as I say, I think it is important to separate the two elements. So the views and the understandable concerns around taking Russian commodities, given the situation in Ukraine is one element, and that's impacted all of our methods. That's impacted aluminum, copper, impacted nickel, but that effect has been manageable within the context of the market. We haven't seen the aluminium market, for example, blow out in the same way the nickel market did so obviously the market has reacted to events in Ukraine and the expectations, perhaps of Russian metal being less available but that, I think, has happened in an orderly manner. It's important to note that the nickel situation is totally different. The nickel situation is a technical situation driven by a particular client in the OTC market who got themselves into a position that threatened the systemic stability of the market. So I think it's important to separate the two.
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Reporter5:15
Okay, I have to go, but do you think you'd have to do this again then, because that doesn't give me a lot of confidence this won't happen again, you have to have transparency, right, a look-see into the system. Sorry not a lot of time but I'm giving you an opportunity here.
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Matthew Chamberlain5:29
Absolutely, so the important thing is we have put a daily price limit. Which LME has not had before. Those price limits now in place, they're going to stay in place, and that protects us and we will also go and look more at OTC market where we have been...