RAPAPORT... Israel's Bank Leumi has entered the bidding to acquire Union Bank's diamond-lending business, signaling a potential return to the industry following a six-year absence.The move pits the lender against Peninsula, another Israeli credit provider, which announced last week it was in advanced talks to buy the portfolio. "We submitted an offer to purchase [Union Bank's] portfolio," a B...Read More

The London Metal Exchange recently reiterated its willingness to facilitate spot trading of low carbon aluminium. While not a new concept for the exchange, it would serve two important purposes. First, it would provide more transparent, digitalized data on the specification of its aluminium brands and determine whether people are actually paying more for low carbon metal. Second, it would pro...Read More

RAPAPORT... Alrosa's diamond sales plummeted 85% to $40.1 million in May as the miner allowed customers to defer purchases.Rough sales slumped 86% year on year to $36.2 million, while polished revenues fell 22% to $3.9 million, the Russian miner reported Wednesday.However, total sales of rough and polished were still nearly triple April's $15.6, showing the beginning of a rebound in demand."I...Read More

Zambian blister copper producer Chambishi (CCS) has brought forward its 43-day maintanence plan after being hit by a furnace outage since early June, Fastmarkets understands.With a 250,000 tonne-per-year copper capacity, the CCS plant is one of the biggest copper smelters in Zambia to supply blister copper to the export market. The subsidiary of China Nonferrous Mining Corp (CNMC) h...Read More

Fastmarkets has corrected its two Shanghai bonded copper premiums, which were published incorrectly on Wednesday June 10 due to an error. Fastmarkets' daily price assessment for copper grade A cathode ER premium, bonded in-whs Shanghai (MB-CU-0383) was originally published at $80-90 per tonne on June 10. This has now been corrected as $75-80 per tonne. The copper grade A cathode SX-EW pr...Read More

RAPAPORT... HRD Antwerp has closed its equipment division, effective June 9, as part of a restructuring of the Belgian grading laboratory.The organization will increase its focus on its grading and education services, CEO Ellen Joncheere said in a statement Tuesday. The equipment division - which specializes in machines for detection, examination and manufacturing - will continue to sell diam...Read More

A deal for third-quarter aluminium ingot supply to Japan has been concluded at a premium of $68 per tonne cif main Japanese ports (MJP), sources told Fastmarkets on June 11 - a drop of 20% from a deal done last week.The tonnage, sold by a trader to a Japanese trading house, is 1,500 tonnes, with 500 tonnes to be supplied in each month of the quarter.This follows the first deal for the third quarte...Read More

RAPAPORT... BlueRock Diamonds has sold a parcel of rough for $700,000 in a private sale, noting that the average realized price was approximately 15% below pre-pandemic levels.The miner sold 2,400 carats from its Kareevlei mine in South Africa at an average price of $290 per carat, the miner said Monday. In the fourth quarter of 2019, the company's rough garnered an average price of $410 per...Read More

Plate prices in the United States - currently at their lowest since November 2016 - have almost converged with hot-rolled coil due to weaker end markets for plate while sheet mills have been able to collect price increases during the recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic-related slowdown.As of Wednesday June 10, there is only a $1-per-hundredweight ($20-per-short-ton) differential between cut-to-len...Read More

Prices for most imported flat-rolled and plate products in the United States have moved up as a result of steel prices rising both internationally and domestically, yet interest in importing remained low due to still weak - although improved - demand.Sources recognized that strong demand from China while the East Asian country gradually recovers from the Covid-19 pandemic has resulted in limited s...Read More

Turkish billet import prices increased over the past week, in line with rising imported scrap costs, and domestic and export billet prices are expected to follow soon, sources said on Thursday June 11.Suppliers in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) increased their billet offers to Turkey to $390-395 per tonne cfr, up from last week's $385-390 per tonne. Customers in Turkey, however,...Read More

Demand for imported steel billet and domestic steel reinforcing bar (rebar) in Egypt remained weak in the seven days to Thursday June 11, but billet import prices increased because of high offers, sources told Fastmarkets.No improvement in demand is anticipated any time soon because all construction activity was halted for six months by order of the Egyptian president in late&n...Read More

Liberty Steel plans to replace the basic oxygen furnace (BOF) at its Galati plant in Romania with two electric-arc furnaces (EAFs), with the aim of becoming carbon-neutral by 2030, the company announced this week.Within the next three to five years Liberty also plans to install a 2.50 million tonnes-per-year direct reduced iron (DRI) module at the Galati plant, a Liberty Galati...Read More

Turkish domestic rebar and wire rod prices have increased over the past week due to rising imported scrap costs and strong demand, sources said on Thursday June 11.Fastmarkets' weekly price assessment for steel reinforcing bar (rebar) domestic, exw Turkey was 3,400-3,440 lira ($501-507) per tonne on Thursday, up from 3,250-3,300 lira per tonne, including 18% VAT, the week before.Steel producers in...Read More

Rupert Resources on a Roll at IkkariSPONSOREDCardinal heading down familiar gold roadSPONSOREDcardinal resourcesSarama right in the middle of big exploration, corporate build-upSPONSOREDsarama resources Exore excels in Cote d'IvoireSPONSOREDexore resourcesIn a translated statement, the Federation of Copper Workers (FTC) said there were "alarming numbers" of infections and it had received a ser...Read More

Risk assets were weaker this morning, Thursday June 11, with the base metals prices on the London Metal Exchange down across the board, as were Asian-Pacific equities and pre-market major western equity index futures. * US Federal Reserve projections suggest no rate rise until end of 2022...* ...hints they expect a long drawn out recovery, implying less of a V-shaped one.* Concerns rise about a se...Read More

Artemis all set thanks to unique approachSPONSOREDartemis resourcesWhether the powers that be in Washington and Montana that received one of the red caps are game enough to wear the take on Trump's "Make America Great Again" 2016 election slogan when out and aboutRead More

GFG Alliance is to create its first "Greensteel" facility in Europe at its Liberty Steel facility in Galati, Romania, as part of its plan to become carbon neutral by 2030, the company said this week.The investment plans include a Direct Reduced Iron (DRI) plant with a capacity to produce 2.5 million tonnes - initially using natural gas, but with the aim of transitioning to using hydrogen...Read More

Turkish steel mills took a break from deep-sea scrap purchasing on Thursday June 11, after booking significant volumes in recent weeks, sources told Fastmarkets.Turkish steelmakers have booked at least 14 deep-sea cargoes since the beginning of the month, totaling around 450,000 tonnes.They have been booking deep-sea scrap since the easing of Covid-19-related restrictions led to an...Read More

Market participants in the Bangladesh scrap market must close the gap between bids and offers to achieve any fresh bulk sales, sources told Fastmarkets on Thursday June 11. Some traders expected Bangladeshi mills to re-enter the market for bulk and containerized scrap in the weeks following the country's Eid-ul-Fitr holidays, but this has simply not materialized.Instead, while bulk scrap offers fr...Read More