Mexican steel scrap prices skyrocketed in the week ended Friday January 15, with steelmakers struggling with low inventories and increasing their buying prices to secure supply.In both regions where prices are assessed by Fastmarkets, major scrap consumers applied price increases early last week, and some applied a second increase between January 15 and 18.In the region near the northern city of M...Read More

Here are five Fastmarkets stories you might have missed on Tuesday January 19 that are worth another look.Rabobank will close its commodity trade finance desks in London, Shanghai and Sydney after reviewing the embattled sector last summer.Brazilian flat steel distributors...Read More

The London Metal Exchange and its clearing house are revisiting a proposal to transition to a different way of calculating its clearing methodology. The exchange announced its discussion paper on the topic on Tuesday January 19. The last attempt was made in 2017 and was rejected by LME members because it would make the provision of credit lines expensive and result in the rapid withdrawal of...Read More

Covid-19 appears to have claimed another casualty: the London Metal Exchange ring trading floor. The closure of the floor, now entering its 144th year, has been proposed in a discussion paper issued by the exchange earlier on Tuesday January 19.The open outcry floor may be old, but it didn't appear to have serious underlying health issues. It has successfully fought back against talk it was set to...Read More

The London Metal Exchange and its clearing house are revisiting a proposal to transition to a different way of calculating its clearing methodology. The exchange announced its discussion paper on the topic on Tuesday January 19. The last attempt was made in 2017 and was rejected by LME members because it would make the provision of credit lines expensive and result in the rapid withdrawal of...Read More

Covid-19 appears to have claimed another casualty: the London Metal Exchange ring trading floor. The closure of the floor, now entering its 144th year, has been proposed in a discussion paper issued by the exchange earlier on Tuesday January 19.The open outcry floor may be old, but it didn't appear to have serious underlying health issues. It has successfully fought back against talk it was set to...Read More

The London Metal Exchange is proposing the permanent closure of its open-outcry trading floor and the incentivization of greater liquidity on its electronic trading platform, LMESelect. The proposals, laid out in a new discussion paper on future market structure, also include potential changes to the exchange's margin methodology and the introduction of potential additional disclosures and policie...Read More

The domestic price for hot-rolled coil in Northern Europe inched down day on day on Tuesday January 19 due to slow market activity, sources told Fastmarkets. Both buyers and steelmakers have been holding back from making new deals, according to market participants. Fastmarkets calculated its daily steel hot-rolled coil index, domestic, exw Northern Europe at ?,?719.00 ($868.00) per tonne on Tuesda...Read More

Turkish deep-sea scrap import prices have gone down once again in the latest trade heard for a US-origin cargo, sources said on Tuesday January 19.A steel mill in the Marmara region booked a US cargo, comprising 6,500 tonnes of HMS 1&2 (80:20) at $450 per tonne, 22,000 tonnes of shredded and 1,500 tonnes of bonus at $460 per tonne cfr. The deal was agreed on January 16, with the cargo scheduled to...Read More

RAPAPORT... Rough-diamond prices at Petra Diamonds' January tender rose 8% on a like-for-like basis, returning to levels seen before Covid-19, the miner said Tuesday.The tender included about 382,000 carats of rough mined during the first fiscal half that ended December 31. Those stones yielded $30.5 million. "The improvement in the market...is very encouraging, and will provide some support as we...Read More

Chilean copper producer Codelco's board of directors has approved a $1.24 billion investment in the expansion of its El Teniente facility just south of the capital, Santiago, the state-owned copper producer said on Tuesday January 19.Those capital expenditures represent the total budget estimated for the Diamante and Andesita projects, and will be spent together with another $1.93 billion, already...Read More

RAPAPORT... Gemological Science International (GSI) has launched a service that tests lab-grown diamond jewelry for undisclosed natural stones, noting that mixing had become increasingly common."During our routine grading process for laboratory-grown diamond jewelry, our team of experts [has] come across natural-diamond melee mixed into lab-grown diamond jewelry," said Debbie Azar, the organi...Read More

RAPAPORT PRESS RELEASE, January 19, 2021, New York... The Rapaport Group has released its Diamond Price Statistics Annual Report for 2020, evaluating the performance of polished-diamond prices. The report provides an in-depth analysis of the past year's trends, and compares the price changes within specific diamond categories.The Rapaport Diamond Index (RDI?,,?), which tracks changes in the R...Read More

London Metal Exchange lead and nickel made gains close to 1% during the afternoon trading session on Tuesday January 19, with a lower US dollar index giving metals some space to recuperate their forward prices. Lead's three-month price was up 0.9% to $2,015 per tonne at 5pm, an increase from $1,996.50 per tonne on Monday. The metal had been on a steady decline since reaching $2,051 per tonne...Read More

The London Metal Exchange and its clearing house are revisiting a proposal to transition to a different way of calculating its clearing methodology. The exchange announced its discussion paper on the topic on Tuesday January 19. The last attempt was made in 2017 and was rejected by LME members because it would make the provision of credit lines expensive and result in the rapid withdrawal of...Read More

RAPAPORT... Diamond jewelry is the most desired tangible luxury product among consumers under the age of 40, second only to vacations, according to a survey by the Natural Diamond Council (NDC).The majority of demographic groups picked vacations as the luxury item they would most want to buy or receive if money were no object, the NDC said Friday. Female purchasers and male recipients were th...Read More

RAPAPORT... The American Gem Society's (AGS) annual Conclave will return this year, with a live event in Dallas, Texas.The event will take place from September 12 to 14 at the Sheraton Dallas Hotel, AGS said last week. The event was originally set to run in Louisville, Kentucky, in April, but was postponed due to Covid-19. AGS scrapped the 2020 edition altogether.AGS will feature peer-to-peer lear...Read More

RAPAPORT... Sales at Luk Fook slid in the third fiscal quarter as a slump in the Hong Kong market outweighed a recovery on the mainland.Group-wide same-store sales - at branches open for at least a year - fell 29% year on year during the three months ending December 31, the retailer reported last week. Same-store sales in China rose 4% as the country brought the pandemic under control and gold pri...Read More

A summary of Brazilian base metals producer Nexa Resources' operational figures for the fourth quarter and full-year 2020, as stated in its production report published on Tuesday January 19.In brief Output in 2020 was within the revised full-year guidance provided in May after the company was forced to close some Peruvian mines due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Mining production at Cerro Lindo, Atacoc...Read More

Covid-19 appears to have claimed another casualty: the London Metal Exchange ring trading floor. The closure of the floor, now entering its 144th year, has been proposed in a discussion paper issued by the exchange earlier on Tuesday January 19.The open outcry floor may be old, but it didn't appear to have serious underlying health issues. It has successfully fought back against talk it was set to...Read More