The three-month lead price on the London Metal Exchange rose by 1.2% at the close of trading on Friday September 20, climbing beyond the $2,100 per tonne support level, while forward spreads in LME nickel tightened over the afternoon. Lead futures closed at $2,120 per tonne, its highest closing price since March, while just under 4,000 lots were exchanged by the close. Reports of a restart at Nyrs...Read More
Restocking by downstream consumers in preparation for China's National Day holiday was the main driver of a drawdown of most base metal stocks at Shanghai Futures Exchange-approved warehouses in the week to Friday September 20. All base metals inventories fell, barring zinc and nickel. Copper stocks tumbled by 7.1% or 10,809 tonnes to 141,379 tonnes in the latest SHFE stock report released on Frid...Read More
Seaborne coking coal prices have fallen to a three-year low while the segment for premium products appear to be diverging into two distinct tiers due to sustained Chinese demand for low-vol materials and fewer takers for mid-vol cargoes.Premium hard coking coal, fob DBCT: $128.19 per tonne, down $12.47 per tonnePremium hard coking coal, cfr Jingtang: $154.98 per tonne, down $6.45 per tonneHard cok...Read More
Questions about the fate of stocks held by the defunct Fanya Metal Exchange have been a weight on negotiations in many minor metals markets since the bourse collapsed in 2015, and have contributed to the uncertainty that has stifled trade for much of 2019.Buying appetite in the spot market has weakened, and prices for some minor metals including indium, bismuth and antimony have reached multi...Read More
The import market for pig iron in the United States fell in the week ended Friday September 20, with buyers still not ready to resume purchases and expecting lower prices because of the weak scrap sector and planned maintenance outages in December.Fastmarkets' price assessment for pig iron, import, cfr Gulf of Mexico, US, was $320-325 per tonne on September 20, down from $330-340 per tonne the wee...Read More
The three-month lead price on the London Metal Exchange rose by 1.2% at the close of trading on Friday September 20, climbing beyond the $2,100 per tonne support level, while forward spreads in LME nickel tightened over the afternoon. Lead futures closed at $2,120 per tonne, its highest closing price since March, while just under 4,000 lots were exchanged by the close. Reports of a restart at Nyrs...Read More
An overview of the battery raw materials markets and their latest price moves.Read More
Uptrends in the spot aluminium premiums in Rotterdam have faltered with backwardations in the London Metal Exchange December/three-month and January/three-month spreads starting to put material pressure on the physical market. Fastmarkets assessed the benchmark aluminium P1020A premium, in-whs dup Rotterdam at $100-110 per tonne on Friday September 20 from $105-115 per tonne the day before wh...Read More
Restocking by downstream consumers in preparation for China's National Day holiday was the main driver of a drawdown of most base metal stocks at Shanghai Futures Exchange-approved warehouses in the week to Friday September 20. All base metals inventories fell, barring zinc and nickel. Copper stocks tumbled by 7.1% or 10,809 tonnes to 141,379 tonnes in the latest SHFE stock report released on Frid...Read More
Some large Chinese metal scrap buyers that have been granted import quotas have been reselling their permits to smaller companies since new import restriction came into place, Fastmarkets learned. China implemented a quota system in July this year to restrict the inflow of metal scrap, including high-quality category 6 copper scrap, in a bid to reduce the pollution arising from the scrap processin...Read More
The three-month nickel price on the London Metal Exchange was higher during morning trading on Friday September 20, buoyed by both stock removals and fresh cancellations while turnover was moderately high. The nickel price was recently trading at around $17,795 per tonne, climbing by more than 3% from Thursday's closing price of $17,280 per tonne. Nickel trading volumes were moderately high over t...Read More
Chinese nickel consumers may be deterred from guaranteeing long-term ore supply by investing in Philippine ore production, delegates said during a panel discussion at the 18th International Stainless and Special Steel Summit in Seville, Spain, on Wednesday September 18.This is despite prevailing opinion that Philippine material is more easily refined and cost effective than Chinese nickel pig iron...Read More
The recent sharp increase in the London Metal Exchange three-month nickel price is justified by long-term electric vehicle (EVs) demand for the metal even if it is driven by the stainless steel sector in the short term, Nornickel's head of commodity research said at the 18th International Stainless and Special Steel Summit in Seville, Spain, on Wednesday September 18. "We saw this type of price ra...Read More
US cold-rolled coil and hot-dipped galvanized prices have diverged on wider concerns that the domestic flat-rolled steel market could be on shaky ground.Fastmarkets' weekly price assessment for steel cold-rolled coil, fob mill US was unchanged at $37 per hundredweight ($740 per ton) on Thursday September 19. Meanwhile, Fastmarkets' weekly price assessment for steel hot-dipped g...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.Perhaps a false sense of security had crept in. Plentiful oil supply, carefully stewarded in 2019 by OPEC+ to get the market closer to balance, and moderate prices. Rising geopolitical tension,even around Iran, seemed a nebulous...Read More
Namibian diamond mining company Namdeb, a 50:50 joint venture between De Beers, itself a subsidiary of Anglo American plc, and the Namibian government has sold its Elizabeth Bay mine and associated marine assets to the Lewcor group. The basic deal is worth N$120-million. Namdeb ceased operations at Elizabeth Bay a year ago, because it could no longer run the mine economically. However, it also det...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.The time is right for the mining industry to invest in new projects. The fundamentals are clear: we forecast supply gaps across a number of key commodities by 2028.Investors are understandably concerned that the mining industry will r...Read More
CIS producers of steel billet have kept their offer prices stable despite mounting downward pressure from the poor international scrap trading environment and limited demand, market sources told Fastmarkets on Friday September 20.Fastmarkets' daily steel billet index, export, fob Black Sea, CIS, was $357 per tonne on September 20, compared with $356 per tonne a day earlier.Steelmakers have been of...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.Shockwaves from Tsingshan's new stainless steel hub in Indonesia are reverberating across South East Asia and beyond, according to Wood Mackenzie.“Competitively priced exports of Indonesian stainless product have provoked varyin...Read More
A 7.5% year-on-year fall in apparent steel consumption in Brazil in August was largely due to declining domestic sales, particularly in the long-steel sector. Consumption totaled 1.81 million tonnes in August, down from 1.95 million tonnes in the same month of 2018, national steel association Instituto A??o Brasil said on Thursday September 19. Demand for flat-rolled products of 1.06 million tonne...Read More