The London Metal Exchange three-month nickel price rose to a seven-year high during trading on Thursday February 18, with positive macroeconomic sentiment and the return of Asian trading acting as catalysts for base metals prices. Nickel's three-month price reached $19,205 per tonne during Thursday, the first time it had touched above $19,000 per tonne since September 2014. It closed slightly low...Read More
Iron ore prices surged on Thursday February 18 on support from strong steel prices and positive sentiment regarding steel inventory, sources told Fastmarkets.Fastmarkets iron ore indices 62% Fe fines, cfr Qingdao: $175.05 per tonne, up $8.17 per tonne62% Fe low-alumina fines, cfr Qingdao: $175.50 per tonne, up $8.25 per tonne58% Fe fines high-grade premium, cfr Qingdao: $160.22 per tonne, up $7.56...Read More
Seaborne premium hard coking coal prices edged up on Thursday February 18, with Chinese market participants back from the Lunar New Year holiday, but there was still uncertainty over the direction of the cfr market, sources said.Fastmarkets indicesPremium hard coking coal, fob DBCT: $141.26 per tonne, up $0.06 per tonnePremium hard coking coal, cfr Jingtang: $217.48 per tonne, up $0.25 per tonne H...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 are ready to view.This month's key North American steel forecast highlights:US hot-rolled coil prices moved in line with our forecasts in January, with actual prices modestly exceeding our forecasts for the month. Fastmarkets' US HRC index averaged $1,099 per ton in January, slightly above our forecast price of $1,075 per ton for the month. W...Read More
The latest forecasts from Fastmarkets' team of analysts are ready to view.The uptrend in European flat steel prices continued in January 2021 as expected, with the prices for hot-rolled coil in the North and South of the region averaging ?,?698 and ?,?686 ($840 and $826) per tonne respectively, within 1% of the Fastmarkets research forecasts.With European HRC prices climbing to their highest level...Read More
The latest forecasts from Fastmarkets' team of analysts are ready to view.The conequences of the Covid-19 pandemic on energy demand affected oil and gas prices through much of 2020 and weighed on drilling rates and demand for oil-country tubular goods (OCTG) in most regions.These effects were most likely to continue well into 2021 and perhaps longer, according to Fastmarkets OCTG Intelligence Serv...Read More
The latest forecasts from Fastmarkets' team of analysts are ready to view. buoyant flat steel market and rising raw material prices resulted in large price rises for welded pipe products across all regions in January 2021.Increases in the price assessments for helical submerged arc-welded (HSAW) pipes were of the magnitude of $140-190 per tonne, with the exception of Europe, where prices were...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
The latest forecasts from Fastmarkets' team of analysts are ready to view.Key ferro-alloy forecast highlights for the coming months:?EUR? A strong recovery in both bulk and noble alloys is expected in 2021 but the markets are unlikely to return to the levels seen before the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic. We have seen a quicker-than-expected recovery across various regions amid the economic fal...Read More
The latest forecasts from Fastmarkets' team of analysts are ready to view.Prices for most ferro-alloys maintained their upward momentum into October, solidifying previous gains and reflecting the improved demand from steelmakers, the rebuilding of depleted inventories, and the supply-side concerns following both planned and unplanned outages. Gains were noted for ferro-silicon, silicon metal, mang...Read More
The latest forecasts from Fastmarkets' team of analysts are ready to view.This month's key ferro-alloys forecast highlights:Prices across most ore and alloy markets trended higher in September, buoyed by improving demand from steelmakers with the end of the summer holiday season in Europe and the United States, as well as maintained demand from Chinese steel mills. Tightening of alloy inventories...Read More
The latest forecasts from Fastmarkets' team of analysts are ready to view.Fastmarkets analysts were invited to present our outlook for the coking coal market at Coaltrans Asia, held online on November 23-25. One of the key topics at the event was the trade tensions between China and Australia, which overtook Mongolia to become the largest coking coal exporter to China this year...Read More
The latest forecasts from Fastmarkets' team of analysts are ready to view.Iron ore remains the most bullish commodity of the year, with prices fuelled by Chinese demand and supply disruptions in Brazil, along with bullish sentiment. But prices are expected to come down because Brazilian exports have begun to recover, and have reached their highest level since the Brumadinho dam disaster in 2019. W...Read More
The latest forecasts from Fastmarkets' team of analysts are ready to view.In the iron ore market, supply issues including heavy rains at the start of the year, followed by staffing problems during the Covid-19 pandemic, have affected exports from Brazil. This has helped Australia gain a larger market share, but since June, Brazilian export volumes have returned to levels last seen before the...Read More
The latest forecasts from Fastmarkets' team of analysts are ready to view.Chinese blast furnace (BF) utilization rates have stagnated and iron ore port stock volumes are rising, reaching their highest levels since March, which suggests that iron ore supply is becoming excessive while demand is not growing. Unsurprisingly, prices dropped last week and we expect the trend to continue. The market has...Read More
The latest forecasts from Fastmarkets' team of analysts is ready to view.We spoke in our previous tracker of stainless steel prices ending 2020 on a high. That trend has continued during early 2021 and, in fact, the upward rally in prices has increased its momentum.Compared with the monthly price increase of some 5% seen at the end of 2020, prices for grade-304 stainless steel in al...Read More