On a Glencore conference call last month, London’s biggest mining investor demanded to know when resource companies would finally halt production of nickel, the year’s worst performing metal.

“How much longer do you think we’re going to see some of this production remain around before it’s forced to be taken out of the market?” asked Evy Hambro, who manages billions of dollars in mining funds for BlackRock.

As prices for the metal used in stainless steel plumb their lowest level since 2003, his question might finally be answered.

Brazilian miner Votorantim Metals announced this week that it planned to suspend two nickel operations in the country, marking the first announcement of a sizeable shutdown in the west.

On the other side of the world, in Australia, Clive Palmer’s Queensland Nickel, whose slogan is “nickel for the future”, said it would go into voluntary administration, laying off 240 workers at its refinery near Townsville.

The announcements are a sign that mining companies are finally starting to buckle in the face of collapsing prices, as China’s voracious appetite for commodities slows. Output cuts could eventually stabilise commodity prices and halt a slide that has threatened resource-dependent economies and wiped billions of dollars off the value of the world’s largest miners.

“It is potentially the beginning of a wave of closures,” says Nicholas Snowdon, an analyst at Standard Chartered. “But that’s contingent on producers moving away from their strategy of waiting for other producers to cut. Not just with nickel but right across base metals.”

Other metals markets have also seen cutbacks. Last year Glencore cut planned zinc output by a third and suspended operations at its two copper mines in Africa. Zinc is the metal most likely to rally in price this year as supply falls 3.3 per cent, according to Australian investment bank Macquarie.

“Despite the barriers to exit, the long-awaited supply response is kicking in — a process being accelerated by financial markets,” says Macquarie.

In iron ore, smaller international producers are starting to struggle and Chinese mine supply of the steelmaking ingredient has already come out of the market.

In aluminium, US producer Alcoa said last week its 269,000-tonne Warrick smelter in the US would be closed by the end of the first quarter. The company will have removed approximately a quarter of its operating smelting capacity and a fifth of refining capacity by mid-2016.

Almost 70 per cent of nickel producers are making a loss at current prices. In aluminium and iron ore a third are losing money, and in copper the figure is about 22 per cent, according to data from Macquarie.

Lower metal and other commodity prices have been driven in part by a withdrawal of investor money from the sector. Assets under management in commodities by retail and institutional investors fell 18 per cent last year to below $250bn, according to Citi. This represents a loss of $330bn since the price peaked in April 2011, says the bank.

That has increased the pain on producers, who made acquisitions and built up production over the past decade. Eighteen mining companies went bankrupt last year. Credit-default insurance on bonds of Swiss-based miner and trader Glencore hit a six-year high this month. Anglo American’s shares have fallen 80 per cent in the past year.

“I think we’re in the zone; it is going to now lead to issues,” says one senior trader.

Nickel is the metal most likely to see immediate cutbacks, according to analysts. Last year Glencore said its Murrin Murrin mine in Australia, which produces about 40,000 tonnes a year, might be shut if prices did not recover. An impairment of its Koniambo mine in New Caledonia is also likely, according to Macquarie.

Miners have benefited from weaker oil prices and a strong US dollar, which has made producing commodities in countries such as Chile cheaper. But analysts say that trend might not last if the global economy recovers this year and oil prices improve.

Cutbacks could also be coming to China, which has become the world’s largest producer aluminium in recent years. The country’s largest producer of the lightweight metal, China Hongqiao, said it expected its profits last year to have fallen between 25 and 35 per cent.

“Such significant falls in profitability can be expected to eventually result in drastic action being taken to reduce overcapacity in the aluminium industry,” London-based analysts at Investec say. “It is now incumbent on Chinese producers to make downward adjustments to supply.”

Still, even for markets where cutbacks occur there are still large inventories of metal to work through, which could continue to weigh on prices.

Without an improvement in the global economy or a pick-up in sentiment towards China, any supply cuts might only be able to halt falling prices rather than spark a rally. But for many miners that, for now, would be enough.

Responding to the question on output cuts from BlackRock’s Mr Hambro last month, Glencore chief executive Ivan Glasenberg was characteristically blunt.

“People are bleeding cash . . . Please God, let it happen.”