The pig iron market in the United States remained inactive during the week to Friday April 24 due to low steel production rates and the resulting reduced need for pig iron.Fastmarkets' price assessment for pig iron, import, cfr Gulf of Mexico, US was $290-295 per tonne on Friday, up by $5 per tonne from $285-290 per tonne a week before."Our steel mills are operating at record-low ra...Read More
The price of containerized ferrous scrap imports into India inched lower this week while the market continues to grapple with the fallout of the lockdown period in the country, sources told Fastmarkets on Friday April 24.Fastmarkets calculated the steel scrap, shredded, index, import, cfr Nhava Sheva, India, at $269.13 per tonne on Friday, down from $272.50 per tonne a week earlier.Since lockdown...Read More
Brazil's slab export prices were stable this past week, with few volumes offered and costs continuing to pressure steelmakers' margins.Fastmarkets' weekly assessment for steel slab, export, fob main port Brazil was at $320-345 per tonne on Friday April 24, unchanged from the previous week.Prices near the lower end of the range corresponded to offers and consultations in Asian countries,...Read More
CIS export billet prices lost their upward momentum this week, with demand in most outlets turning weak. Turkish customers that had been particularly active recently were now showing less interest in billet imports, having booked enough material earlier."I expect the market to turn quiet by the end of the week," one trader said at the start of the week. "On Wednesday, Turkey will be on holiday, on...Read More
Vietnamese integrated steelmaker Hoa Phat plans to raise its long steel capacity by installing a new wire rod rolling mill at its Dung Quat site, located some 700km south of capital city Hanoi. The announcement of further long steel capacity at the sprawling Dung Quat complex follows a rise in steel sales for the company during the month of March. Hoa Phat's new rolling mill will have a capacity o...Read More
Key data from Fastmarkets' pricing session in Shanghai, New York and Galway on Friday April 24. China The lower end of domestic prices widened downward due to producers' attempts to destock. Export market dropped after suppliers slashed their offer prices to attract...Read More
British Steel is set to restart production at its North Yorkshire special steel mill, on Monday April 27, following a three-week shutdown the company announced on April 24.In addition to the 240,000 tonnes-per year special steel mill at Skinningrove in Redcar & Cleveland, the company said it also plans to reopen its Lisburn service centre in Northern Ireland."Whi...Read More
A summary of Spain-based stainless steel producer Acerinox's financial results for the first quarter of 2020. In brief The company said the stainless steel market recovery in the first quarter was cut short by the impact of the Covid-19 coronavirus, with profits down 14% year on year. The company had paused operations in Spain for four days in April and will resume...Read More
Apparent steel consumption in Brazil totaled 1.61 million tonnes in March 2020, falling by 11.1% from 1.82 million tonnes in the corresponding month of 2019, the national steelmakers' association, Instituto A??o Brasil, said on Friday April 24.Aside from December, which is a traditionally weaker month for steel demand because of holidays, this was the lowest figure reported since January 2019. Som...Read More
More Italian steel producers restarted their operations in the week ended Friday April 24, but one French flat steel producer plans to temporarily idle its remaining equipment, Fastmarkets has heard.European steelmakers have been reducing output and temporarily idling equipment due to the poor demand resulting from lockdown orders and other quarantine measures implemented across the region with th...Read More
German steelmaker Salzgitter has downgraded its full-year earnings forecast for 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the company said in its preliminary report for the first quarter on April 24."We anticipate a negative pre-tax result in a significant, with a high probability, triple-digit million euro range for the financial year 2020. The scope of feasible scenarios is so extensive that precise qu...Read More
British Steel is set to restart production at its North Yorkshire special steel mill, on Monday April 27, following a three-week shutdown the company announced on April 24.In addition to the 240,000 tonnes-per year special steel mill at Skinningrove in Redcar & Cleveland, the company said it also plans to reopen its Lisburn service centre in Northern Ireland."Whi...Read More
Crude steel production in Germany fell by 10.36% year on year in March due to production cuts made to meet a drop in demand, the German steel federation, WV Stahl, said on April 23.Germany's crude steel production totaled 3.29 million tonnes in March 2020, down from 3.67 million tonnes in the corresponding period of 2019.A large number of end users, particularly automotive manufacturers, have stop...Read More
Brazil's slab export prices were stable this past week, with few volumes offered and costs continuing to pressure steelmakers' margins.Fastmarkets' weekly assessment for steel slab, export, fob main port Brazil was at $320-345 per tonne on Friday April 24, unchanged from the previous week.Prices near the lower end of the range corresponded to offers and consultations in Asian countries,...Read More
Global markets are contracting in the face of the Covid-19 pandemic, and the prices for flat steel products continue to retreat, with prices for coated steels down by a further 5% since late March in most of the markets that Fastmarkets tracks.The latest edition of Fastmarkets' Galvanized Steel and Tinplate Market Tracker, for April 2020, is now available to view.Further price falls are almost cer...Read More
Cadmium prices continue to move downward in the week ended Friday April 24, with the global market in paralysis because of sluggish demand from India, the main buyer worldwide.On March 25, a 21-day lockdown was imposed on India to combat the Covid-19 pandemic. This has since been extended until May 3, hitting economic activity, while trading and projects came to a halt and migrant workers returned...Read More
The Covid-19 pandemic may well provide Freeport-McMoRan with a silver lining it had never expected. The US copper producer is discussing with the government of Indonesia what should be done with the planned smelter in the Gresik region in the province of East Java. It has been forced to delay the completion timeline of December 2023 for the plant, due both to Covid-19-related disruptions to the wo...Read More
When the oil price fell into negative price territory at the start of the week ended April 24, it fueled fears that a similar situation could materialize in metals. The good news for users of the London Metal Exchange is the exchange's delivery mechanism that makes it virtually implausible, while its contract structure makes it even more unlikely. Here's why. The reason the West Texas In...Read More
Last month, analysts started warning that oil prices could fall below zero. On Monday April 20, they did.The May futures contract for West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil fell as low as minus $37.63 per barrel, the first time ever that the price of the commodity has entered negative territory. By contrast, the June WTI contract is trading at around $20 per barrel, marking the biggest perce...Read More
The London Metal Exchange three-month aluminium price rose by 0.3% during trading on Friday April 24 to close at $1,514 per tonne, on low turnover of 9,132 lots during the day.Global LME aluminium stocks remained high, with 1,175,175 tonnes on warrant on Friday, and total stocks at 1,317,925 tonnes.Fastmarkets analyst Andy Farida noted in his Aluminium Today report that speculative sentiment remai...Read More