* Some Australian nickel projects halted or delayed
* Miners say nickel price too low, not viable for mining
* Poseidon puts Lake Johnston mine on care and maintenance
By Melanie Burton and James Regan
MELBOURNE/SYDNEY, July 17 (Reuters) - A 30 percent slump in nickel prices this year has piled pressure on small Australian miners, forcing some of them to delay new projects and expansions as they wait for the market to recover.
Poseidon Nickel POS.AX became the latest miner to succumb when it said on Thursday it would put its Lake Johnston mine on care and maintenance - a sign casualties were mounting amid near record metal stockpiles and weak demand from key consumer China.
Exchange stockpiles of the metal used to make stainless steel nearly doubled in the 18 months to June, pressuring benchmark prices CMNI3 to six-year lows of $10,430 per tonne last week, down 32 percent since the start 2015.
"When you've got 70 percent of an industry at break-even or loss making you're going to see people defer projects and shut down," said UBS analyst Daniel Morgan in Sydney.
"I think you'll see a steady stream of these type of announcements for the next several months," he added.
Panoramic Resources PAN.AX blamed the low metal prices for its decision this week to curtail development of its Jury-Metcalfe lode, saying "significantly higher" prices were needed for it to ramp up output as planned in December.
It also warned of possible job losses.
Mincor MCR.AX has said it could start cutting output by November unless nickel prices improved. ID:nL3N0YH1R3
Australian's Macquarie has slashed its nickel price view, cutting it by 13 percent for 2015, after similar moves by other investment banks such as Morgan Stanley, Citi, ANZ and JP Morgan. ID:nL4N0ZV5I5
Macquarie, however, expects prices to recover later this year, a view echoed by UBS, as demand from China's mills picks up and exchange stocks extend a decline that began last month.
"With future deficits (and higher pricing) projected, producer optimism remains, but the question is whether balance sheets will force closure before the upside comes," Macquarie said in a research note.
As of now, low prices have hit valuations for nickel mines.
Global mining and commodity trader Glencore GLEN.L recently sold a nickel mine inherited through its Xstrata takeover to Australian nickel producer Western Areas WSA.AX .
The Cosmos nickel mine in Western Australia was sold for A$24.5 million ($18.14 million), a fraction of the A$3.1 billion Xstrata had spent in 2008 to acquire the Cosmos and Sinclair mines as part of its takeover of Jubilee Mines. ID:nL5N0Z53FQ
Nickel blunders run rampant in Australia.
Back in 2007, BHP Billiton BHP.AX BLT.L spent $6 billion building the Ravensthorpe mine, but within a year, nickel prices crashed, forcing the miner to shut Ravensthorpe and take a $5.16 billion bad investment impairment.
It finally sold Ravensthorpe to Canada's First Quantum FM.TO for $340 million in 2009. ($1 = 1.3503 Australian dollars) (Editing by Himani Sarkar)