The copper price closed below $5,000 per tonne on the London Metal Exchange, having traded no higher than $4,938 per tonne earlier on Friday March 20.The three-month copper contract ended at $4,810 per tonne, having bottomed out at $4,613 per tonne earlier despite 5,275 tonnes of warrants being cancelled. More than 25,000 lots changed hands.On-warrant copper stocks stand at 183,175 tonnes on Frida...Read More
The London Metal Exchange will temporarily close its open outcry trading floor and go to electronic price discovery from Monday March 23 as a precautionary measure amid the coronavirus (2019-nCoV) pandemic, it said. The open-outcry floor, one of the last of its kind in the world, has been operating from its disaster recovery site in Essex for the past week.The exchange said last week it may move t...Read More
The falling price of aluminium on the London Metal Exchange, combined with a weakening supply picture in Europe, is putting pressure on smelters' profit margins, but there are no reports of production cuts in the market yet, Fastmarkets understands.The LME three-month aluminium price benchmark hit a low of $1,579 per tonne during trading on March 19, its lowest since September 2016. Although LME a...Read More
The new issue of Aluminium Market Tracker is now online at metalbulletinresearch.com.In this edition, Fastmarkets' research team delivers key insights and forecasts into aluminium markets around the world.Aluminium price down 2.3% week-on-week amid stock market sell-offGlobal markets remain rattled by the spread of the novel coronavirus (2019-nCOV) across Europe and the United States. Panic-sellin...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
Fastmarkets' copper concentrates treatment and refining charge (TC/RC) index retreated during the week to Friday March 20 from its one-year high, reflecting expectations about falling supply from South American producers.A weekly brief on the Fastmarkets' copper concentrate index: The copper concentrate TC/RC index, cif Asia Pacific was calculated at $66.70 per tonne/6.67 cents per lb on Friday, d...Read More
Domestic prices in the north of Europe were unchanged day on day on Friday March 20 after a decrease the previous day, sources have told Fastmakets.Fastmarkets' daily steel hot-rolled coil index, domestic, exw Northern Europe, was stable day on day at ?,?470.00 ($507.28) per tonne on Friday. This followed a drop of ?,?7.31 per tonne day on day on March 19. ...Read More
Aluminium scrap prices in the United States were steady to weak as the impact of the novel coronavirus spread started to hit the industry, and some market participants continued to operate this past week despite business closures in the automotive industry and beyond."The situation is very fluid right now; our intentions are to continue running at reduced capacity," one US-based consumer said. "We...Read More
Chilean state-owned copper producer Codelco and the Federation of Copper Workers (FTC) - which represents all unions related to the miner - entered into an agreement on Friday March 20 to maintain some level of production in the company during the state of emergency declared by the federal government.While copper output will be adversely affected to some degree during the lockdown, workers and man...Read More
The copper price closed below $5,000 per tonne on the London Metal Exchange, having traded no higher than $4,938 per tonne earlier on Friday March 20.The three-month copper contract ended at $4,810 per tonne, having bottomed out at $4,613 per tonne earlier despite 5,275 tonnes of warrants being cancelled. More than 25,000 lots changed hands.On-warrant copper stocks stand at 183,175 tonnes on Frida...Read More
Anglo American will gradually reduce operations at its Los Bronces copper-molybdenum works in Chile following a government announcement about tackling the 2019-nCoV coronavirus pandemic, it said.It initially plans to minimize activity at the mine until March 31 when a 15-day period of national emergency in Chile is due to expire. This plan will be evaluated on a daily basis, however, the miner add...Read More
Glencore is not experiencing any material disruptions at its operating assets or within its supply chain due to the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV), it said, but it has experienced an impact on certain smaller operations where governments have imposed restrictions.The Swiss mining and marketing company did not specify which smaller assets had been affected. Glencore operates in countries such as Per...Read More
The falling price of aluminium on the London Metal Exchange, combined with a weakening supply picture in Europe, is putting pressure on smelters' profit margins, but there are no reports of production cuts in the market yet, Fastmarkets understands.The LME three-month aluminium price benchmark hit a low of $1,579 per tonne during trading on March 19, its lowest since September 2016. Although LME a...Read More
Most flat-rolled steel import prices in South America gave in to global downward pressure in the week to Friday March 20, as concerns about demand sustainability and persistently aggressive bids led to less expensive offers for May shipments.Market participants expressed fears regarding how long demand could hold amid government lockdowns across the continent to contain the novel coronavirus (2019...Read More
Prices for hot-rolled coil in the United States went down on Friday March 20, after certain buyers canceled their orders to prepare for worsened steel demand, market participants said.Fastmarkets' daily steel hot-rolled coil index, fob mill US was calculated at $28.06 per hundredweight ($561.20 per short ton) on March 20, down by 1.2% from $28.40 per cwt on March 19 and down by 0.7%...Read More
Prices for cold-rolled coil and galvanized sheet in the United States held steady while market participants struggled to measure the impact of the Covid-19 disease on steel availability and demand.Mills did not lower their offers during the week to Friday March 20, while the public-health response to the pandemic in various states expanded restrictions on activities deemed non-essential. Market pa...Read More
Sentiment in the deep-sea scrap market has become even poorer following the sharp downturn in Turkish import prices amid the spread of the 2019-nCoV coronavirus pandemic, sources said on Friday March 20.The Turkish steel producers resumed their deep-sea scrap bookings for April shipment cargoes, sending prices down by almost $24 per tonne on March 18.A steel mill in the Marmara region booked a Can...Read More
Liberty Steel Group will halt operations at its Dudelange-Liege steelmaking sites tomorrow, sources told Fastmarkets on Friday, March 20.Liberty Steel Group will halt operations at its Dudelange-Liege steelmaking sites tomorrow, the company told Fastmarkets on Friday, March 20.A spokesman confirmed that all three Liberty Liege-Dudelange production sites - at Fl?(C)mal...Read More
The London Metal Exchange will temporarily close its open outcry trading floor and go to electronic price discovery from Monday March 23 as a precautionary measure amid the coronavirus (2019-nCoV) pandemic, it said. The open-outcry floor, one of the last of its kind in the world, has been operating from its disaster recovery site in Essex for the past week.The exchange said last week it may move t...Read More