Liberty Steel, part of the GFG Alliance, has restarted Adhunik Steel in India six months after it acquired the plant, the company said on Thursday October 22. The company said that it had restarted the first phase of production at Adhunik Metaliks Ltd and Zion Steel following the acquisition of the steel businesses in February 2020. The acquisition of the Indian site is a strategic investment in o...Read More
Liberty Steel, part of the GFG Alliance, has restarted Adhunik Steel in India six months after it acquired the plant, the company said on Thursday October 22. The company said that it had restarted the first phase of production at Adhunik Metaliks Ltd and Zion Steel following the acquisition of the steel businesses in February 2020. The acquisition of the Indian site is a strategic investment in o...Read More
Demand for rebar and billet in Egypt failed to improve in the week to Thursday, October 22, despite the authorities reducing safeguard duties on the products, sources told Fastmarkets.Steel billet and rebar prices in Egypt were unchanged as a result, they added. The duty for imported billet was cut to 13% for the cif market last week, with a $60-per-tonne minimum, compared with ...Read More
The European Commission (EC) has opened an anti-dumping (AD) probe into imports of steel wind towers originating in China, the commission said on Wednesday October 21.The investigation started after the European Wind Tower Association lodged a complaint on behalf of European producers on March 17 - the association represents more than 25% of the total European production of steel wind towers.The p...Read More
Slab export prices from Brazil remained unchanged week on week amid a lack of offers while producers and buyers wait for negotiations for January 2021 shipments to start.Mills were sold out of material for shipment through December, with most sales in the spot market made to the United States, sources said.Fastmarkets' weekly price assessment for steel slab, export, fob main port Brazil was $490-5...Read More
Three-month prices for all base metals on the London Metal Exchange lost momentum before the close on Friday October 23, falling in tandem with a drop in the US stock markets.The LME three-month copper price lost 0.5% to close at $6,876 per tonne, after seeing a low turnover of just over 9,900 lots on Friday.The LME three-month lead and zinc prices dipped by 1% and 0.6%, respectively, and the...Read More
Now is not the time for Freeport-McMoRan to be thinking about mergers and acquisitions, the mining company's chief executive officer says.According to Richard Adkerson, the company - which is just over half-way through a mega-project to transform its giant Grasberg copper-gold mine in Indonesia from an open-pit to an underground operation - is on the verge of creating huge shareholder value."I jus...Read More
Domestic prices for secondary steel billet in India increased by 1,200 rupees ($16) per tonne in the week to Friday October 23, mainly on account of an equal rise in the price of direct-reduced iron (DRI), which is the most widely used feedstock for making secondary billet in the country.The price of steel billet, domestic, ex-works India, was assessed by Fastmarkets on October 23 at 31,300-31,500...Read More
Now is not the time for Freeport-McMoRan to be thinking about mergers and acquisitions, the mining company's chief executive officer says.According to Richard Adkerson, the company - which is just over half-way through a mega-project to transform its giant Grasberg copper-gold mine in Indonesia from an open-pit to an underground operation - is on the verge of creating huge shareholder value."I jus...Read More
Plans for a London Metal Exchange spot trading platform have sparked intense debate within the aluminium industry. But opponents and supporters don't necessarily fall into the camps that one might expect. For starters, a decision by the LME not to change its futures contract, establish a new green aluminium contract or set thresholds to define what constitutes low-carbon metal is proving key in st...Read More
Three-month prices for all base metals on the London Metal Exchange lost momentum before the close on Friday October 23, falling in tandem with a drop in the US stock markets.The LME three-month copper price lost 0.5% to close at $6,876 per tonne, after seeing a low turnover of just over 9,900 lots on Friday.The LME three-month lead and zinc prices dipped by 1% and 0.6%, respectively, and the...Read More
Seaborne premium hard coking coal prices edged down on Friday October 23, with market participants from China unable to purchase Australian coking coal while sources from India were in wait-and-see mode.Fastmarkets indicesPremium hard coking coal, fob DBCT: $113.25 per tonne, down $0.49 per tonne Premium hard coking coal, cfr Jingtang: $126.05 per tonne, down $0.73 per tonneHard coking coal, fob D...Read More
The London Metal Exchange base metal prices barring aluminium traded higher on Friday October 23, with the US dollar on shaky ground. US House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Thursday that could be a settlement "pretty soon" on the bill which Democrats and President Donald Trump propose providing $2.2 trillion in targeted relief in what is the world's largest economy. The dollar i...Read More
The latest forecasts from Fastmarkets' team of base metals analysts are ready to view.Aluminium: SHFE tailwind for LME pricesAs we are entering the traditional strong demand season, we expect Chinese aluminium demand to show further recovery, and we expect demand from existing end-user sectors, new infrastructure projects and the export sector to show some increases. As a result, we believe that S...Read More
The latest forecasts from Fastmarkets' team of base metals analysts are ready to view, including an upgrade to our aluminium price forecasts.Aluminium: Price forecasts raisedWe correctly expected the macro reflationary theme to raise the prices for all base metals but, with it being the base metal with by far the weakest fundamentals, we had expected the price of aluminium to underperform relative...Read More
The latest forecasts from Fastmarkets' team of analysts are ready to view.These include an increase in our copper mine disruption estimates, upgrades to our production outlook for Indonesian nickel pig iron (NPI), a smaller refined zinc surplus, and an upgrade to our zinc price forecasts.Aluminium: Big disconnect between price and fundamentalsAluminium has extended its uptrend on the London Metal...Read More
The latest forecasts from Fastmarkets' team of analysts are ready to view.US ERW OCTG edges higher, seamless could followRising substrate costs helped support US ERW OCTG prices this month, especially at the upper end of the range of offers. Seamless OCTG and linepipe prices, meanwhile, held firm compared with September prices. The fundamentals remain weak, with rig counts going up...Read More
The latest forecasts from Fastmarkets' team of analysts are ready to view.This month's key North American steel forecast highlights:US domestic prices for hot-rolled coil (HRC) moved sharply higher in September, in line with our expectations, but the magnitude of the rise exceeded our predictions. Domestic HRC prices averaged $566 per ton in September, exceeding our $540 per ton forecast price.A c...Read More
The latest forecasts from Fastmarkets' team of analysts are ready to view.Although we correctly forecast a significant rise in hot-rolled coil (HRC) prices in the United States in September 2020, our price forecast proved too conservative.An impressive V-shaped recovery in key economic fundamentals critical to steel consumption is driving stronger demand for steel at the start of the fourth quarte...Read More
The latest forecasts from Fastmarkets' team of analysts are ready to view.Across the regions, producers of welded linepipe and oil-country tubular goods (OCTG) saw their margins shrink with substrate costs increasing in the third quarter of 2020.Many have been attempting to protect margins with higher prices, with varying degrees of success. Europe-origin commodity-grade steel hot-rolled coil and...Read More