The latest forecasts from Fastmarkets' team of analysts are ready to view.This month's key North American steel forecast highlights:?EUR? There is no end in sight to the shortfall in flat steel supply that has characterized US markets in early 2021, and we expect record-high US pricing for hot-rolled coil to persist through the second quarter of 2021 and into the second half of the year. We are fo...Read More
The latest forecasts from Fastmarkets' team of analysts is ready to view.In both Europe and the United States, the prices of most flat steel products have pushed to record highs in the weeks to Monday March 22. They remain slightly below their mid-2008 peaks in China, but are at multi-year highs there too.This illustrates in part the heavier consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic for steelmakers in...Read More
The latest forecasts from Fastmarkets' team of analysts are ready to view.Chinese seamless linepipe prices have jumped by $120 per tonne over the past month because of rising costs. With iron ore prices remaining elevated, scrap costs on the rise, and activity at steel mills curbed by environmental measures, steel billet has become difficult to source, bolstering the prices for seamless linep...Read More
The latest forecasts from Fastmarkets' team of analysts are ready to view. This month's key North American steel forecast highlights: US hot-rolled coil prices continued to move in line with our forecasts in February, although actual prices again modestly exceeded our forecasts. Domestic HRC prices averaged $1,194 per ton in February, exceeding our forecast price of $1,150 per ton for the month. U...Read More
The latest forecasts from Fastmarkets' team of analysts are ready to view.This month's key ferro-alloy forecast highlights:?EUR? Impressive advances in ore and alloy prices persisted in March, with most markets posting significant price gains. Strengthening demand from steelmakers along with supply shortages and depleted inventories in numerous markets, as well as freight and transportation...Read More
Inner Mongolia, China's ferro-chrome production heartland, has imposed restrictions on its metallurgical sector in a move that has fueled the high-carbon ferro-chrome markets in China and Europe, and although this may ease off, the gains were unlikely to be lost while alloy ramp-ups continue, sources have told Fastmarkets.The decision to restrict energy consumption in Inner Mongolia since December...Read More
The latest forecasts from Fastmarkets' team of analysts are ready to view.This month's key ferro-alloy forecast highlights:?EUR?In a strong start to the year, January saw ore and alloy pricing gains across all markets priced by Fastmarkets - with the exception of Chinese silicon metal export prices, which retreated slightly last month after posting impressive gains in December 2020.The combination...Read More
The latest forecasts from Fastmarkets' team of analysts is ready to view.With nickel prices down by almost 20% over the space of around ten days during late February and early March, one might have been expecting us to be reporting sharply-lower prices of stainless steel, at least for the most common nickel-containing grades of stainless steel.This is not the case, at least in Europe and the Unite...Read More
The latest forecasts from Fastmarkets' team of analysts is ready to view.We spoke in our previous tracker of stainless steel prices ending 2020 on a high. That trend has continued during early 2021 and, in fact, the upward rally in prices has increased its momentum.Compared with the monthly price increase of some 5% seen at the end of 2020, prices for grade-304 stainless steel in al...Read More
The latest forecasts from Fastmarkets' team of analysts is ready to view.Prices of stainless steel are generally set to reach highs for the year as 2020 comes to a close. For the most common nickel-containing grades of stainless steel, this upward trend is being driven above all by rising nickel prices, which themselves are hitting relatively high levels into the end of 2020.The price increases si...Read More
Access our research platformsSign-in to our platforms to access our extensive research, our latest insight, data and analytics and to connect to our industry experts.Demand for copper — already on a rising trend — is arguably set to explode as the energy transition takes hold. In order to prevent structural deficits, unsustainably high prices and demand destruction, miners will have to...Read More
Access our research platformsSign-in to our platforms to access our extensive research, our latest insight, data and analytics and to connect to our industry experts.Copper will play a pivotal role in the energy transition. Aluminium may be an abundant and cheap competitor for electrification applications, but carbon footprint issues for primary metal may give copper the edge. Ultimately that poin...Read More
Access our research platformsSign-in to our platforms to access our extensive research, our latest insight, data and analytics and to connect to our industry experts.We enter 2021 with many mined commodity prices riding high after recovering from a dramatic pandemic-induced slump in H1 2020. But far from marking a new atmosphere of positivity, the new year brings new questions. How will Chinese po...Read More
Access our research platformsSign-in to our platforms to access our extensive research, our latest insight, data and analytics and to connect to our industry experts.As the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic began to bite, many observers confidently predicted that the end was nigh for global economic activity. Governments around the world closed their economies as the only tool available to li...Read More
RAPAPORT... Production of rough diamonds at the Murowa mine in Zimbabwe declined 15% in 2020 amid a move to lower-grade resources.Output came to 579,000 carats for the full year, compared with 685,000 carats in 2019, owner RioZim said last week. The drop in production was primarily due to the processing of lower-grade ore from the K2 portion of the mine following the depletion of the site's higher...Read More
RAPAPORT... US polished-diamond imports fell again in February after showing signs of stabilizing in the previous month, according to recent data from the US Department of Commerce. Shipments dropped 7% to $1.35 billion as a 9% drop in the average price outweighed a slight increase in the volume of imports.US Trade Data for February 2021 Read More
RAPAPORT... Gemological Science International (GSI) has launched a laboratory in Jaipur, aiming to tap into the Indian city's rich heritage as a center for gemstones.The new location will offer all of GSI's core services, as well as a dedicated division specializing in the origins and identification of colored stones, the organization said Monday. The laboratory will feature advanced equipmen...Read More
A summary of base metals premiums from across the globe for the week to Tuesday April 13.Please click...Read More
Aluminium's futures price traded close to its 2021 year-to-date high at the close of trading on the London Metal Exchange on Tuesday April 13, while most metals recovered their losses from Monday because of a tumble in the US Dollar Index.The three-month price of aluminium closed at $2,993 per tonne at 5pm, but had reached $2,295 per tonne during trading, just $6 per tonne below its year-to-date h...Read More
(IDEX Online) - An Australian man has appeared in court charged with insider trading over a high-value diamond discovery.He's alleged to have bought up shares in Lonhro - now Lucapa - for a family member when he learned of a high-value diamond discovery the company had made in Africa back in 2012.The find was only made public five days later, by which time the shares bought had increased in v...Read More