The three-month copper price on the LME climbed by just over 1% on Thursday April 23 to settle at its highest level since April 14, while nickel futures gained ground in the afternoon despite low turnover. Copper's outright price on the London Metal Exchange closed at $5,160.50 per tonne on Thursday afternoon, gaining some $30 per tonne from Wednesday's closing price, while turnover in the re...Read More
European buyers of hot-rolled coil expected that domestic prices would slide due to the current poor demand, sources told Fastmarkets in Thursday April 23.Fastmarkets' daily steel hot-rolled coil index, domestic, exw Northern Europe, was ?,?447.00 ($484.68) per tonne on Thursday, up by only ?,?2 per tonne day on day from ?,?445.00 per tonne on April 22.Official offers have been heard at ?,?455-465...Read More
Here are five Fastmarkets stories you might have missed on Thursday April 23 that are worth another look.Anglo American has lowered the 2020 production guidance for its Kumba iron ore operations to 37-39 million tonnes, down from a previous guidance of 41.5-42.5 million tonnes, due to the lockdown in South Africa, the miner said on April 23.South Africa is to end its nationwide lockdown and ease r...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 Covid-19 pandemic is a unifier in that it impacts all. But sub-Saharan Africa is facing an unprecedented health and economic crisis that threatens to throw the region off its stride, reversing the development progress of recent years and hitting the mining sector hard.The mineral-rich region - which comprises 46 of the 54 countries in the continent below the Sahara - is expected to see its eco...Read More
The Covid-19 pandemic has rapidly hit global electric vehicle (EV) production and sales, and so the broadly anticipated reshuffle of China's EV battery supply chain is likely to speed up in 2020. Many already believed the EV subsidy policy in China that had been scheduled to end in December 2020 would squeeze out some companies in the EV battery supply chain, including producers of precursors, cat...Read More
Metal traders are banking profits after locking an arbitrage to import copper into China, which has opened following a switch in London and Shanghai futures curves. China's Shanghai Futures Exchange copper contract is backwardated, meaning the market is pricing short-term copper above that of the future. Meanwhile the London Metal Exchange forward curve is in a steep contango; cash contracts are t...Read More
The three-month copper price on the LME climbed by just over 1% on Thursday April 23 to settle at its highest level since April 14, while nickel futures gained ground in the afternoon despite low turnover. Copper's outright price on the London Metal Exchange closed at $5,160.50 per tonne on Thursday afternoon, gaining some $30 per tonne from Wednesday's closing price, while turnover in the re...Read More
Total zinc inventory in London Metal Exchange warehouses has risen by 37% since the start of April to 100,075 tonnes as of April 23. Market sources attribute the rise in stocks to producers shipping their stock into warehouses to wait out the storm that is Covid-19. Demand for the galvanizing metal, like many other commodities, has fallen due to Covid-19 related lockdowns, leaving traders and prod...Read More
Metal traders are banking profits after locking an arbitrage to import copper into China, which has opened following a switch in London and Shanghai futures curves. China's Shanghai Futures Exchange copper contract is backwardated, meaning the market is pricing short-term copper above that of the future. Meanwhile the London Metal Exchange forward curve is in a steep contango; cash contracts are t...Read More
The latest forecasts from Fastmarkets' team of analysts are ready to view.Aluminium: 4-million-tonne surplus for 2020We have made further downward revisions to our aluminium demand expectations for 2020 and, although there have been smelter capacity reduction in China too, the net effect is that our forecast for the global surplus this year has swelled to 4 million tonnes, from 2.7 million tonnes...Read More
The latest forecasts from Fastmarkets' team of analysts are ready to view.Average LME aluminium price down by 2.5% week on weekAlthough LME aluminium began this week on the rebound, prices extended their recent downtrend further last week, approaching the $1,400-per-tonne level. The weekly average LME aluminium cash price was down 2.5% last week to $1,432.50 per tonne from previous week's $1,469.6...Read More
The latest forecasts from Fastmarkets' team of analysts are ready to view.Aluminium: OversoldAluminium has been the hardest hit base metal over the past week, after relentless selling pressure took it to fresh multiyear lows while its LME peers generally consolidate or try to rebound. Aluminium is seeing far less in the way of supply restraint or disruptions than the other metals. But this market...Read More
The latest forecast from Fastmarkets' team of analysts is ready to view.Aluminium: Downside momentum maintainedThe aluminium price has continued to decline, with LME cash even falling below the $1,500 per tonne mark at the start of this week. Downside pressure and momentum remains in the short term while ex-China demand plummets amid auto production line closures and while smelters resist capacity...Read More
The latest forecasts from Fastmarkets' team of analysts are ready to view.Despite these unprecedented times, US sheet prices moved in line with our expectations over the past month. While we maintain our view on the direction of pricing during 2020 and the length of the pricing downturn, as the Covid-19 crisis deepens we have increased the magnitude of the price declines through the second quarter...Read More
The latest forecasts from Fastmarkets' team of analysts are ready to view.As oil price stumbles, outlook for welded markets weakensIn February, oil prices, already hit by the economic slowdown in Asia, turned lower on the failure of OPEC+ to reach an agreement on production cuts. This was enough to shake oil markets, but the collapse of global demand due to the pandemic has driven Brent below $30/...Read More
The new issue of the Seamless OCTG & Linepipe Market Tracker is now online at metalbulletinresearch.com.In this edition, Fastmarkets' research team delivers analysis of seamless OCTG and linepipe across international markets:Covid-19 underscores pipe outlookUnsurprisingly, the concern in the seamless pipe markets across the regions is the effect of the spread of Covid-19 on public health and econo...Read More
The new issue of the Steel Market Tracker is now online at metalbulletinresearch.com.In this edition, Fastmarkets' research team delivers key insights and forecasts into the long and flat products markets.This week's risks to our latest flat-rolled forecasts:The Chinese government is stepping up help to the economy, increasing banks' liquidity. But the spread of the coronavirus worldwide is likely...Read More
The latest forecasts from Fastmarkets' team of analysts are ready to view.This month's key ferro-alloy forecast highlights:While the ferro-alloy industry's initial response to the Covid-19 outbreak was marked by rising prices primarily in response to supply-side concerns, focus has now shifted somewhat. As Chinese activity slowly returns to more normal levels, for alloys with a strong Chinese prod...Read More
The latest forecasts from Fastmarkets' team of analysts are ready to view.The recent decline in Chinese scrap prices - to their lowest in a couple of years - even as demand rises, suggests that Chinese scrap supply is increasingly sufficient. In terms of scrap demand, the question is more about price attractiveness. Mini-mills were reducing demand in February, largely because steel margins on scra...Read More