Slab export prices from Brazil were stable in the week ended Thursday April 1, with most sellers already sold out of May-shipment volumes, but are mulling over new price increases for April.Fastmarkets' weekly price assessment for steel slab, export, fob main port Brazil was $780-810 per tonne fob on Friday, unchanged from the previous week.Next week, sellers are considering price increases o...Read More
The import market for flat-rolled steel came to a stop in South America in the week to Thursday April 1, with mills in China mills mostly withdrawing from exports, or refraining from offering to the region.The trigger for this was the doubt in the East Asian country about its final decision on an export tax rebate cut, market participants told Fastmarkets.Some Chinese steelmakers did offer exports...Read More
The price of alloy-grade cobalt has risen above that for its standard-grade counterpart for the first time in six weeks, Fastmarkets heard on Thursday April 1, with cheap standard-grade parcels available from sellers looking to take profit.This situation bucked a recent trend where standard-grade metal had been trading mostly at a premium due to strong demand for briquettes downstream.Broken catho...Read More
The Shanghai Futures Exchange's plans to list ferro-chrome futures, potentially this year, will bring welcomed hedging opportunities and may weaken the dominance of China's stainless steel mills in the ore and alloy markets, participants told Fastmarkets.While no definite date or specifications of the ferro-chrome futures have been announced, Fastmarkets asked participants what changes these contr...Read More
Usually after a London Metal Exchange discussion paper there is a decent idea of what the outcome is likely to be. But this time around, it seems much harder to tell which path the LME will take. The proposals under debate include the permanent closure of the exchange's open outcry trading floor, known as the ring, which dates back to 1877. They also include the incentivization of electronic trade...Read More
When considering the prospects for the new Shanghai International Energy Exchange (INE) copper contract, a senior executive at one of the world's largest metals trading companies quoted Hamlet's soliloquy in the Shakespearian play of the same name."In terms of promotion of the internationalization of the renminbi and weakening of the pricing power of the [London Metal Exchange] and CME: 'To be or...Read More
A global shortage of steel slab is a key factor in rocketing flat steel prices, market sources told Fastmarkets this week.Reduced CIS suppliesCustomers from Italy and Turkey have noticed a reduction in the availability of steel slab originating in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) region in the second half of March."Some Italian re-rollers cannot produce much coil and plate due to missi...Read More
Aluminium's and nickel's prices bounced back slightly at the close of trading on the London Metal Exchange on Thursday April 1 from Wednesday's figures, but aluminium and zinc showed losses over the week of nearly 2%, while other base metals continued to consolidate.Nickel's three-month price showed the biggest increase in the base-metals complex on Thursday, up by 0.9% to $16,214 per tonne, back...Read More
Iron ore prices went up on Thursday April 1, largely due to support from rising steel prices, sources told Fastmarkets.Fastmarkets iron ore indices 62% Fe fines, cfr Qingdao: $167.60 per tonne, up $2.45 per tonne62% Fe low-alumina fines, cfr Qingdao: $168.52 per tonne, up $1.94 per tonne58% Fe fines high-grade premium, cfr Qingdao: $150.19 per tonne, up $3.20 per tonne65% Fe Brazil-origin fines, c...Read More
Zinc producer Trevali has begun trucking ore concentrate at its mothballed Caribou mine in the Canadian province of New Brunswick, the company said on Tuesday March 30.The activity follows the producer reopening the Caribou mine in mid-January. It had been on care and maintenance from March 2020.The Caribou mine's last full year of activity was 2019, when it recorded 34,017 tonnes of zinc producti...Read More
The latest forecasts from Fastmarkets' team of base metals analysts are ready to view.Aluminium: SHFE tailwind for LME pricesAs we are entering the traditional strong demand season, we expect Chinese aluminium demand to show further recovery, and we expect demand from existing end-user sectors, new infrastructure projects and the export sector to show some increases. As a result, we believe that S...Read More
The latest forecasts from Fastmarkets' team of base metals analysts are ready to view, including an upgrade to our aluminium price forecasts.Aluminium: Price forecasts raisedWe correctly expected the macro reflationary theme to raise the prices for all base metals but, with it being the base metal with by far the weakest fundamentals, we had expected the price of aluminium to underperform relative...Read More
The latest forecasts from Fastmarkets' team of analysts are ready to view.These include an increase in our copper mine disruption estimates, upgrades to our production outlook for Indonesian nickel pig iron (NPI), a smaller refined zinc surplus, and an upgrade to our zinc price forecasts.Aluminium: Big disconnect between price and fundamentalsAluminium has extended its uptrend on the London Metal...Read More
The latest forecasts from Fastmarkets' team of analysts are ready to view. We also review our price forecasting accuracy for the second quarter 2020.Q2 2020 price forecast performance review According to the results of Fastmarkets' Apex for the second quarter of 2020 published this week, Fastmarkets' base metals research team was the second most accurate price forecaster for nickel (99.06%), lead...Read More
The latest forecasts from Fastmarkets' team of analysts is ready to view.In both Europe and the United States, the prices of most flat steel products have pushed to record highs in the weeks to Monday March 22. They remain slightly below their mid-2008 peaks in China, but are at multi-year highs there too.This illustrates in part the heavier consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic for steelmakers in...Read More
The latest forecasts from Fastmarkets' team of analysts are ready to view.Chinese seamless linepipe prices have jumped by $120 per tonne over the past month because of rising costs. With iron ore prices remaining elevated, scrap costs on the rise, and activity at steel mills curbed by environmental measures, steel billet has become difficult to source, bolstering the prices for seamless linep...Read More
The latest forecasts from Fastmarkets' team of analysts are ready to view. This month's key North American steel forecast highlights: US hot-rolled coil prices continued to move in line with our forecasts in February, although actual prices again modestly exceeded our forecasts. Domestic HRC prices averaged $1,194 per ton in February, exceeding our forecast price of $1,150 per ton for the month. U...Read More
The conclusion of various holiday seasons, the end of winter, the progress of Covid-19 vaccination programs, and the will to return to more normal ways of life were all strong positives for the global long steel products market, the International Rebar Producers & Exporters Association (Irepas) said last week.The current situation and sentiment were generally very good in the world's long steel ma...Read More
Inner Mongolia, China's ferro-chrome production heartland, has imposed restrictions on its metallurgical sector in a move that has fueled the high-carbon ferro-chrome markets in China and Europe, and although this may ease off, the gains were unlikely to be lost while alloy ramp-ups continue, sources have told Fastmarkets.The decision to restrict energy consumption in Inner Mongolia since December...Read More
The latest forecasts from Fastmarkets' team of analysts are ready to view.This month's key ferro-alloy forecast highlights:?EUR?In a strong start to the year, January saw ore and alloy pricing gains across all markets priced by Fastmarkets - with the exception of Chinese silicon metal export prices, which retreated slightly last month after posting impressive gains in December 2020.The combination...Read More