Tariffs and other trade protectionist measures are not conducive to free trade, the chief executives of several major aluminium producers said on a panel in Fastmarkets' virtual International Aluminium Conference on Tuesday September 22.Top executives from Alcoa, Aluminium Bahrain (Alba), Hindalco, Norsk Hydro and China Hongqiao participated in the panel, sharing their thoughts on trade protection...Read More
German consumers of refined copper have been unloading inventory on the spot market over the past two weeks, adding downward pressure to premiums.German copper end-users selling inventory amid low industrial demand, backwardationGerman consumers of refined copper have been unloading some of their inventory on the spot market to weigh on premium over the past two weeks.Fastmarkets' Copper grad...Read More
Major aluminium producers operating in some of the countries most affected by Covid-19 took decisive actions early on to protect workers and maintain operations, top executives said during a panel at Fastmarkets International Aluminium Conference on Tuesday September 22.Top executives from Alcoa Corp, Aluminium Bahrain (Alba), Hindalco, Norsk Hydro and China Hongqiao participated in the panel, sha...Read More
The London Metal Exchange will add to its aluminium pricing offering with a new cash-settled European duty-paid aluminium premium contract settled against Fastmarkets' benchmark Rotterdam premium. Speaking at the Fastmarkets International Aluminium Conference on Tuesday September 22, Alex Shaw, head of product development and research at the LME, said the exchange will launch the contract in 2021....Read More
Demand for value-added aluminium is returning, supported by a recovery in demand from the automobile and industrial sectors, according to Hindalco's managing director and aluminium division chief executive Satish Pai.Speaking at the Fastmarkets International Aluminium Conference on Tuesday September 22, Pai said the recovery in the auto and industrial sectors has spurred d...Read More
The now-lifted US tariff on Canadian aluminium and the effect of Covid-19 on the market as a whole made an already challenging 2020 for the aluminium industry even tougher, according to Alf Barrios, chief executive officer of Rio Tinto Aluminium.The Section 232 tariff applied to US aluminium imports from Canada, where Rio Tinto has a large aluminium smelting presence, was removed just 40 days afte...Read More
Voestalpine has started up a new bloom continuous caster in Donawitz, Austria, to manufacture highly-advanced end products, the Austrian steelmaker said on Tuesday September 22.The new bloom continuous machine, CC4 at Voestalpine Stahl Donawitz, will have capacity of 1 million tonnes per year and will replace the existing CC2 machine, which has capacity of 750,000 tpy and has been in service for 4...Read More
Sales volumes from Brazilian flat steel distributors rose by 33.5% in August 2020 compared with the corresponding month in 2019, with lower availability from mills leading customers to seek more material from the distribution sector, national distributors' association Inda said on Tuesday September 22.Distributors sold 373,800 tonnes in August, up from 279,900 tonnes a year before. Volumes were al...Read More
Reduced domestic output and limited import offers are keeping sentiment upbeat in the European hot-rolled coil market, sources told Fastmarkets on Tuesday September 22.Fastmarkets calculated the daily steel hot-rolled coil index, domestic, exw Northern Europe, at ?,?485.35 ($572.59) per tonne on Tuesday September 22, up by just ?,?0.40 per tonne from ?,?484.95 per tonne on Monday.The index was up...Read More
Mexican scrap prices increased further in the week to Tuesday September 22 as supply remained scarce and demand for the raw material continued to improve.Market participants reported that some companies applied price increases of around 100-300 pesos ($5-14) per tonne during the week to Friday September 18, mainly because of low inventories and increased demand for certain materials, especially bu...Read More
Steel producers in Turkey extended their absence from the deep-sea scrap markets again amid weak finished steel demand, sources said on Tuesday September 22.The country's steel mills have been holding back from the deep-sea trade since September 9, when the most recent cargoes were booked at prices around $301 per tonne cfr on an HMS 1&2 (80:20) basis.Offer levels for similar material then rose to...Read More
Seaborne cfr coking coal prices climbed by more than 2% day on day on Tuesday September 22 and, despite some doubts about Chinese steel mill import quotas and the idea that prices were too high already, most market participants expected to see an uptrend. Fastmarkets indicesPremium hard coking coal, fob DBCT: $129.01 per tonne, up $0.22 per tonne Premium hard coking coal, cfr Jingtang: $...Read More
Iron ore prices dropped again on Tuesday September 22, which market participants attributed to weak demand for steel and expectations for steel inventory to increase further after the Chinese national holiday (October 1-8). Fastmarkets iron ore indices 62% Fe fines, cfr Qingdao: $117.30 per tonne, down $2.52 per tonne 62% Fe low-alumina fines, cfr Qingdao: $117.74 per tonne, down $2.31 per tonne 5...Read More
China's hot-rolled coil prices were stable on Tuesday September 22 amid a pick-up in trading activity, though market participants remained bearish amid weakening financial markets.DomesticEastern China (Shanghai): 3,840-3,860 yuan ($566-569) per tonne, unchangedSeveral Shanghai-based traders said that trading activity was higher during the day than on Monday.This was due to rising HRC futures in t...Read More
Three-month base metals prices on the London Metal Exchange were broadly up during the morning trading session on Tuesday September 22, ignoring the downtrend in US equity markets, which the metals have been prone to following of late.Dow Jones Futures were subject to a sharp sell-off on Monday, dragging LME base metals prices down with them that same day, but the emergence of dip-buying has led t...Read More
Base metals prices on the London Metal Exchange have rebounded this morning, Tuesday September 22, after weakness in equities on Monday dragged them lower. At the time of our Morning View report on Monday, the LME metals were up by an average of 0.2%, but they ended the day down by an average of 1.6% after concerns escalated about second waves of Covid-19 spreading across Europe. But an across-the...Read More
The Cobalt alloy grade, in-whs Rotterdam, $/lbtrade log including business, bids and offers reported to Fastmarkets.Fastmarkets publishes trades logs for its key price assessments and indices to bring more transparency into the markets it covers and the pricing process it...Read More
The Cobalt standard grade, in-whs Rotterdam, $/lb trade log including business, bids and offers reported to Fastmarkets.Fastmarkets publishes trades logs for its key price assessments and indices to bring more transparency into the markets it covers and the pricing process it applies. Fastmarkets assessed Cobalt standard grade,...Read More
Swiss stainless steelmaker Schmolz + Bickenbach has had its proposal to change the company name approved by shareholders, it said in a press release on Monday September 21.The change of name from Schmolz + Bickenbach AG to Swiss Steel Holding AG was accepted by the shareholders, with 97.92 % of the votes represented. The board of directors had proposed the name of Swiss Steel Group AG.The company...Read More
Fastmarkets is proposing to introduce fallback measures to its two Chinese vanadium fob price assessments amid a significant drop in spot liquidity in China's vanadium export market.Since the second half of 2019, Chinese exporters' interest in shipping vanadium products abroad has been stifled because Chinese prices have been much higher than their European counterparts, which has persisted so far...Read More