Gerdau has appointed Chia Yuan Wang president of its North American long steel division, with immediate effect, the Brazil-based steel producer said on Tuesday April 24.Wang takes over from Gerdau's chief executive officer, Gustavo Werneck, who took an interim role as president of the North American business after Peter Campo left the firm at the end of January, when a change in the mill's...Read More
Earnings at Russia's largest steelmaker, Novolipetsk Steel (NLMK), soared by 31% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2018 on favorable pricing conditions and higher export volumes.NLMK's earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (Ebitda) for the three months totaled $812 million, against $618 million in the corresponding period last year, according to its latest financial sta...Read More
A summary of China's ferro-alloys imports in March 2018.Chrome ore Month total: 1.55 milion tonnes Month-on-month change:+30.59% Year-on-year change:+53.86%* Ferro-chrome Month total: 258,779 tonnes...Read More
Here are 10 key takeaways from Metal Bulletin's and Industrial Minerals' first Battery Materials conference in Shanghai on April 18-19. Bringing online new lithium supply remains a painful process: Bringing new capacity on stream is not easy and it is still difficult to bring new lithium projects online due technical and weather-related issues, as well as lack of investment and know-how, according...Read More
Chinese vanadium exporters lowered their offer prices over the past week due to the weakened Chinese domestic market and a lack of interest from foreign buyers. Meanwhile, the European and US markets continued their slide. Chinese export prices slide on softer domestic prices, limited foreign buyer interestEuropean ferro-vanadium prices continue to suffer from profit-taking US ferro-vanadium marke...Read More
Anglo American boosted manganese ore production in the first quarter of 2018 year on year, coinciding with higher manganese ore prices, although sales dropped 1% year on year. Anglo American produced 881,000 tonnes of manganese ore in the first three months of this year, compared with 823,000 tonnes in the same period last year. Manganese ore production was up 7% year on year, but fell 10% on a qu...Read More
A series of government policies will aid the rapid acceleration of electric vehicle (EV) sales in China - with market penetration projected to reach 7% among all types of vehicles in the country by 2020, according to Jia Hongtao, director of Beijing Electric Vehicle Co Ltd.EVs in China are expected to number around 2 million by 2020, with more optimistic forecasts placing that figure at closer to...Read More
Summary of Anglo American's production results for the three months ended March 31, 2018.(First-quarter total, % change year-on-year) Copper 155,000 tonnes, +9%...Read More
Turkish domestic prices for ferrous scrap from shipbreaking went up slightly during the week that ended on April 23, while domestic auto bundle scrap prices were largely stable, sources said on Tuesday April 24.Metal Bulletin's weekly price assessment for melting scrap from shipbreaking in the Turkish domestic market was $348-355 per tonne delivered, up from last week's $341-352...Read More
The latest bids, offers and deals in the global markets for iron ore, pig iron, direct-reduced iron and other steelmaking raw materials. Latest transaction: iron oreIron oreRio Tinto, tender, 170,000 tonnes of...Read More
Seaborne iron ore prices fell on Tuesday April 24, in line with a decline in the paper market.Metal Bulletin 62% Fe Iron Ore Index: $67.26 per tonne cfr Qingdao, down by $0.41 per tonneMetal Bulletin 58% Fe Premium Index: $56.08 per tonne cfr Qingdao, up by $0.10 per tonneMetal Bulletin 65% Fe Iron Ore Index: $85.30 per tonne cfr Qingdao, down by $0.30 per tonneMetal Bulletin 62% Fe China Port Pri...Read More
The pessimism in the seaborne coking coal market is not showing any signs of letting up with sellers lowering their offers for the steelmaking raw material on Tuesday April 24.Offers for premium hard coking coal were heard around $180-185 per tonne cfr China during the day, compared with $185-192 per tonne cfr a day earlier."There are still May-laycan cargoes in the market, and June-laycan cargoes...Read More
Anglo American is anticipating a reduction of about $300-400 million in earnings for 2018 due to an outage at its Minas-Rio iron ore operations in Brazil, where it does not expect to resume material production for the remainder of the year."The current expectation is that the operations will begin to ramp up in the fourth quarter of 2018," the miner said on Tuesday April 24.Output at Minas-Rio dro...Read More
China's ferrous futures continued to edge up during morning trading on Tuesday April 24, with strengthening domestic demand supporting the physical steel market. Futures closing prices - morning session Shanghai Futures Exchange October rebar: 3,584 yuan ($568) per tonne, up 27 yuan per tonne October hot-rolled coil: 3,701 yuan per tonne, up 5 yuan per tonne Dalian Commodity Exchange September iro...Read More
The latest metal markets news and price moves to start the North American day on Tuesday April 24. Base metals on the London Metal Exchange remained broadly firm during morning trading, with the aluminium price the only downward mover.Reaching a low of $2,213 per tonne, the light metal's price tumbled after spending the majority of last week around the $2,500 per tonne mark.Here is how the LME bas...Read More
China's domestic rebar prices edged up further on Tuesday April 24 on rising futures, but trading activity has thinned. Domestic Eastern China (Shanghai): 3,880-3,920 yuan ($615-621) per tonne, up 20 yuan per tonne Northern China (Beijing): 3,740-3,770 yuan per tonne, narrowed upward by 10 yuan per tonne Rebar futures continued to strengthen during the day, albeit at a less rapid pace as Monday, w...Read More
Base metals on the London Metal Exchange remained broadly firm during morning trading on Tuesday April 24, with the aluminium price the only downward mover. Reaching a low of $2,213 per tonne, the light metal's price tumbled after spending the majority of last week around the $2,500 per tonne mark. Aluminium's three-month price took a hit on Monday afternoon after the United States announced...Read More
China's domestic hot-rolled coil prices continued to rise on Tuesday April 24 following early gains in the futures market.Domestic Eastern China (Shanghai): 4,080-4,120 yuan ($647-653) per tonne, up 20-30 yuan per tonne Northern China (Tianjin): 3,990-4,020 yuan per tonne, up 40-50 yuan per tonne HRC futures rose to a high of 3,708 yuan per tonne during the day - 1.7% higher than the Monday's sett...Read More
China will lead the electric vehicle (EV) battery chemistry evolution - moving from popularized nickel-cobalt-manganese (NCM)523 and NCM622 batteries to the NCM811 battery, while the West would keep NCM622 for longer, according to speakers at Metal Bulletin's Battery Materials Conference, held in Shanghai from April 18-19.The adoption of high nickel-content EV batteries will happen much faster in...Read More
Summary of China's minor metals exports and imports in March 2018.Unwrought bismuth metal exports Month total: 263 tonnes Month-on-month change: +17.41% Year-on-year change: +70.44%* Wrought bismuth metal exports...Read More