The German subsidiary of Blackstone Resources AG is to increase its lithium-ion battery production capacity tenfold, the company said.According to the Switzerland-based holding company, Blackstone Technology will increase its lithium-ion battery manufacturing capacity to 500 MWh per year at its D??beln site in Saxony by 2022. The batteries are made using the company's own 3D-printing...Read More
Turkish steel mills have continued their deep-sea scrap purchases at fairly stable prices, market participants told Fastmarkets on Thursday July 1.A steel mill in the Marmara region booked a Baltic Sea cargo comprising 14,000 tonnes of HMS 1&2 (95:5) at $504.50 per tonne cfr. This was the third deep-sea deal heard so far this week, with another two...Read More
China's domestic rebar prices picked up on Thursday July 1 on early gains in the futures market, though market participants have expressed some pessimism following the release of data showing new orders in the construction industry falling in June. DomesticEastern China (Shanghai): 4,880-4,900 yuan ($755-758) per tonne, up by 20 yuan per tonneWhile the purchasing managers' index for business activ...Read More
Indonesia - the world's biggest tin exporter - is imposing a partial lockdown from July 3 to July 20 due to the country's surge in Covid-19 infections.The lockdown will begin just days after neighboring Malaysia - the world's second-biggest tin exporter - extended its pandemic-related lockdown, which was supposed to end on June 28.Both lockdowns come during an acute global shortage of tin that has...Read More
Japanese scrap export prices continued to increase over the past week on strengthening demand for high-grade material in Japan and South Korea, sources told Fastmarkets."Korean and Japanese mills want the premier grades so the gap between H2 and Shindachi and heavy scrap (HS) keeps rising," a Japanese scrap trader said on Wednesday June 30.Offers for Shindachi busheling were heard at ?62,200-62,3...Read More
Following a three-month consultation, Fastmarkets has adjusted its iron ore index methodology to increase the transparency and predictability of its process for incorporating "floating price" information.This follows a proposal made in April for the refinement of the methodology to include data on floating prices - whereby the transaction price is determined by the index that a particular cargo is...Read More
Chinese battery materials producer GEM's subsidiary company will invest in a battery-grade high-purity nickel and cobalt salts project with an annual capacity of 100,000 tonnes in Jinmen, Hubei province, the company announced on Wednesday June 30.Jinmen GEM High-purity Chemical Material, subsidiary of GEM, will invest 310 million yuan ($48 million) into the project to form production lines using r...Read More
Turkish steel producers continued their deep-sea scrap purchases, but at a slow pace dictated by limited long steel demand, market sources told Fastmarkets on Wednesday June 30.A steel mill in the Marmara region booked a US cargo, comprising HMS 1&2 (80:20) at $501 per tonne, along with shredded and bonus scrap at $521 per tonne cfr late on Tuesday June 29, the seller told Fastmarkets.But some mar...Read More
Key data from Fastmarkets' pricing session in Europe on Wednesday June 30.Key drivers Trading activity is in stasis, with market participants considering the potential impact of the recently announced export duties on ferro-alloys from Russia, which are effective from August 1 until the end of the year. A few small deals were reported for both alloy and scrap within the current price ranges. Ferro...Read More
A shipment of 4,000 tonnes of imported scrap booked by major Chinese steelmaker Hebei Iron & Steel (HBIS) cleared customs checks at Jingtang port in Tangshan, Hebei in early June, sources told Fastmarkets on Wednesday June 30. This is their second cargo of Japanese heavy scrap (HS) since China officially eased restrictions on scrap imports in January 2021. Their first cargo of 2,092 tonnes cleared...Read More
Australia-listed IGO Ltd has completed a transaction to form a new lithium joint venture with Chinese lithium producer Tianqi Lithium over the latter's Australian lithium assets, the company said on Wednesday June 30.In December 2020, the companies signed an initial investment agreement which saw Tianqi's wholly-owned subsidiary Tianqi Lithium Energy Australia Pty Ltd (TLEA) bring in IGO as a stra...Read More
Domestic prices for cold-rolled coil in Europe inched up over the week to Wednesday June 30, despite slow trading activity, sources have told Fastmarkets.The number of transactions for domestic material has been minimal.Buyers have been refraining from purchases due to long lead times from domestic mills. They preferred to remain in 'wait-and-see' mode until the price trend became clear. Full cred...Read More
Domestic prices for hot-rolled coil moved down across Europe on Wednesday June 30, but market participants were in disagreement over whether the decline indicated a change of trend.Buyers have been holding back from purchasing bigger tonnages of HRC, preferring to book lots of less than 500 tonnes if they needed to re-stock or when doing back-to-back business.In addition, buyers believed that a so...Read More
Export prices of hot-rolled coil from the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) have dropped for prompt shipments in the week to Tuesday June 29 due to implementation of new export duties in Russia, sources told Fastmarkets.Fastmarkets' weekly price assessment for steel hot-rolled coil, export, fob Black Sea, CIS was $955-985 per tonne on June 29, down from $980-995 per tonne one week previousl...Read More
An overview of the consumer electronics markets and their latest price moves.Janie Davies, Cristina Belda and...Read More
Here are five Fastmarkets stories you might have missed on Wednesday June 30 that are worth another look.BHP announced in 2018 that the depletion of its 80-million-tonnes-per-year Yandi mine in its Western Australia iron ore operations would begin from the second half of 2021. Fastmarkets explores how the low-grade fines landscape...Read More
News that several major producers had withdrawn from spot trading due to supply shortages has further strengthened China's spot ferro-chrome market, sending spot prices in the week to Tuesday June 29 to their highest point since April."With continuing energy controls in Inner Mongolia in June, our production has been increasingly disrupted due to tightened power restrictions," Jietie Ferroalloy sa...Read More
Here are five Fastmarkets stories you might have missed on Wednesday June 30 that are worth another look.BHP announced in 2018 that the depletion of its 80-million-tonnes-per-year Yandi mine in its Western Australia iron ore operations would begin from the second half of 2021. Fastmarkets explores how the low-grade fines landscape...Read More
Premiums for tin ingots in Europe and the United States continued their rise to new highs in the fortnight to June 29, with freight and trucking costs and delays still the main issue pressuring premiums upward, sources told Fastmarkets. Premiums in Asia were stable, with the high London Metal Exchange price diverting participants away from the spot market. China's Yunnan Tin, the world's lar...Read More
Copper's three-month price has shown the biggest fall during June among base metals on the London Metal Exchange, rocked by Chinese announcements and rising inventories, while the prices of other base metals such as aluminium and tin were higher than on June 1.Copper's price was $9,374.50 per tonne on Wednesday June 30 at the close of trading, falling from $10,245 per tonne on June 1.Among the fac...Read More