The market for steel rebar and billet in the United Arab Emirates was silent in the week to September 21 because buyers were waiting for new local rebar prices to be announced, sources told Fastmarkets.Most market participants expect prices to follow the global downtrend.Fastmarkets' weekly price assessment for steel reinforcing bar (rebar), export, fob Black Sea, CIS was $700-710 per tonne on Sep...Read More
The collapse of the iron ore market and market turbulence over Chinese property developer Evergrande Group are adding to the economic woes caused by the Delta variant of Covid-19 for much of this year.It is hard to find bright sparks in the months ahead for the ferrous supply chain, which has been buffeted repeatedly in a short span of few months, starting with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang's comment...Read More
Zinc producers in China's southwestern province of Yunnan should be able to fully resume their operations by mid-June, sources said.Yunnan will remove its power restrictions by the end of June that have stunted local zinc output, the provincial energy bureau said.A few zinc smelters in Yunnan have already resumed production, however, sources that spoke to Fastmarkets said.Production capa...Read More
After a one-month consultation period, Fastmarkets will amend the timing specifications for its assessment of the China import steel billet price from Tuesday September 28.The frequency of the assessments, which are currently weekly, will move to a twice-weekly basis after the next assessment date on Friday September 24.The change would have been due to take place on Tuesday September 21, as per t...Read More
The market for steel rebar and billet in the United Arab Emirates was silent in the week to September 21 because buyers were waiting for new local rebar prices to be announced, sources told Fastmarkets.Most market participants expect prices to follow the global downtrend.Fastmarkets' weekly price assessment for steel reinforcing bar (rebar), export, fob Black Sea, CIS was $700-710 per tonne on Sep...Read More
Turkish steel mills continued to ignore the deep-sea scrap market on Tuesday September 21, with no transactions heard so far this week, market participants told Fastmarkets.While mills have not yet booked any new transactions so far this week, another transaction emerged from last week, which sources said was a top-up shipment for a cargo booked two...Read More
Teck Resources has trimmed its 2021 production guidance figures for refined zinc and concentrate and said that its copper concentrate shipment timing had been affected by wildfires and logistics disruptions in its home region of British Columbia, Canada.The company now expects its Trail operations to produce 285,000-290,000 tonnes of refined zinc in 2021, down from 290,000-300,000 tonnes previousl...Read More
If any member was going to leave the London Metal Exchange ring trading floor, the exchange was probably hoping it wouldn't be Triland Metals Ltd.The company, a wholly owned subsidiary of Japanese conglomerate Mitsubishi, is one of the exchange's longest serving Category 1 members, having joined in 1972 after being founded in the prior year. Having a unit of Japan's largest trading company as a ri...Read More
Eight of the nine Category 1 members of the London Metal Exchange have indicated their support for continuing to trade official lunchtime prices in the open-outcry ring.Does this mean that one company does not support ring trading? And could one of the exchange's members be preparing to leave the trading floor?The exchange revealed on Monday August 9 that it had majority support for the ring, in a...Read More
Here are five Fastmarkets stories you might have missed on Tuesday September 21 that are worth another look.ArcelorMittal is preparing to invest $100 million from its innovation fund into a company founded by Bill Gates, best known as the founder of Microsoft, to develop decarbonization technologies, it announced on Monday September...Read More
En+ Group is eyeing a partnership with the manufacturer of an electric vehicle to produce aluminium with low-carbon greenhouse gas emissions, its executive chairman told Fastmarkets.Speaking in an interview on Tuesday September 21, Lord Gregory Barker said that partnerships of this kind would "absolutely" become more common as the group scaled up its inert anode technology, which generates direct...Read More
An overview of the chrome ore and alloy markets in Asia, Europe and the United States on Tuesday September 21 and their latest price moves.China The imported charge chrome market rose strongly on supply tightness in China, due to falling domestic production following electricity restrictions. The UG2 chrome ore market stayed stable, with cost support holding prices in balance against falling consu...Read More
ArcelorMittal is preparing to invest $100 million from its innovation fund into a company founded by Bill Gates, best known as the founder of Microsoft, to develop decarbonization technologies, it announced on Monday September 20.The $100 million equity investment in Gates' Breakthrough Energy will be made over five years via ArcelorMittal's XCarb innovation fund, and will go toward scaling-up the...Read More
The world's largest cobalt supplier is the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), which leaves a growing market dependent on a region that poses challenges, among them the risk of human rights abuses.Cobalt is a key ingredient in batteries that power electric vehicles (EVs), and its use is expected to grow exponentially as the world shifts to a greener economy. As a result, in recent years, market s...Read More
Stainless steel prices continue to register new highs around the end of the first half of 2021 and steelmakers continue to enjoy outsized margins.They have responded in recent months by increasing their output, which has now pushed above pre-pandemic levels and will eventually restore balance to the market.For now, though, supply gaps are still being filled and buyers find themselves competing aga...Read More
Manganese semi-carbonate prices have risen in the past week on renewed liquidity, although inventories continued to weigh heavily on the market, limiting any potential gains.Fastmarkets' latest calculation of the manganese ore index, 37% Mn, cif Tianjin, was $4.56 per dry metric tonne unit (dmtu) on Friday September 17, up by 8 cents per dmtu (1.79%) from $4.48 per dmtu the previous week.Fresh liq...Read More
Base metals prices on the London Metal Exchange were down across the board on Tuesday September 21 with uncertainty related to Chinese construction company Evergrande continuing to cast a shadow over the market."This week's sell-off was triggered by a sharp negative turn in global risk sentiment, with the world keeping a close eye on the collapse of Chinese property developer Evergrande and trader...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
Here are five Fastmarkets stories you might have missed on Tuesday September 21 that are worth another look.ArcelorMittal is preparing to invest $100 million from its innovation fund into a company founded by Bill Gates, best known as the founder of Microsoft, to develop decarbonization technologies, it announced on Monday September...Read More
Base metals prices on the London Metal Exchange were down across the board on Tuesday September 21 with uncertainty related to Chinese construction company Evergrande continuing to cast a shadow over the market."This week's sell-off was triggered by a sharp negative turn in global risk sentiment, with the world keeping a close eye on the collapse of Chinese property developer Evergrande and trader...Read More