A summary of base metals premiums from across the globe for the week to Tuesday December 18.Please click...Read More
Flat steel sales from Brazilian distributors increased by 3% year on year in November, amid a slow recovery in the steel market.Sales from distributors amounted to 262,100 tonnes last month, compared with 254,400 tonnes in November 2017, the Brazilian flat steel distributors association (Inda) said on Tuesday December 18.Flat steel consumption in Brazil is mostly being spurred by a positive perfor...Read More
Chinese exporters continued to aggressively slash offer prices in response to sparse buying interest amid weak domestic demand, while European ferro-vanadium prices followed the move down. Chinese exporters cut offering prices amid weak domestic demand European FeV market plummets after taking its cue from the weakening Chinese market European V2O5 flat amid illiquidity, further downward pressure...Read More
Base metals on the London Metal Exchange were mostly lower at the close of trading on Tuesday December 18, with continued strength in the US dollar index limiting price action, while lead futures gained more than 2% against a backdrop of multi-year lows in LME inventory.Depreciating over 2.5% this afternoon, copper futures closed below $6,000 per tonne for the first time since October 31, while to...Read More
The latest news and price moves to start the Asian day on Wednesday December 19.Base metal prices on the London Metal Exchange were mostly lower at the close of trading on Tuesday December 18, with continued strength in the US dollar index limiting price action while lead futures gained more than 2% against a backdrop of multiyear lows in LME inventories. Read more in our live futures report.Here...Read More
The latest metal markets news and price moves to start the North American day on Tuesday December 18.Base metals on the London Metal Exchange were lower across the board during morning trading on Tuesday December 18, with a broad sell-off across the complex capping prices and another fresh inflow of over 57,000 tonnes of aluminium restricting price action.After more than 104,000 tonnes of aluminiu...Read More
Good morning from Fastmarkets MB's offices in Asia as we bring you the latest news and pricing stories on Tuesday December 18.Base metals prices on the Shanghai Futures Exchange had a mixed start on Tuesday, with market participants remaining cautious ahead of a major speech by Chinese President Xi Jinping. Copper prices were little changed, aluminium and zinc prices edged up, while the rest of th...Read More
Base metals on the London Metal Exchange were mostly lower at the close of trading on Tuesday December 18, with continued strength in the US dollar index limiting price action, while lead futures gained more than 2% against a backdrop of multi-year lows in LME inventory.Depreciating over 2.5% this afternoon, copper futures closed below $6,000 per tonne for the first time since October 31, while to...Read More
Seaborne iron ore prices fell below $70 per tonne cfr China on Tuesday December 18 amid expectations of more stringent implementation of steelmaking restrictions in China.MB 62% Fe Iron Ore Index: $69.03 per tonne cfr Qingdao, down $1.44 per tonne. MB 62% Fe Pilbara Blend Fines Index: $68.83 per tonne cfr Qingdao, down $1.44 per tonne. MB 62% Fe Iron Ore Index-Low Alumina: $71.58 per tonne cfr Qin...Read More
Base metals on the London Metal Exchange were lower across the board during morning trading on Tuesday December 18, with a broad sell-off across the complex capping prices, while another fresh inflow of more than 57,000 tonnes of aluminium did little to spur price action. After more than 104,000 tonnes of aluminium inflows this week, including a net inflow of 57,700 tonnes today, the metal's three...Read More
Novolipetsk Steel (NLMK), Russia's largest steelmaker, will increase pig iron output at its Lipetsk site to meet own production needs, the company said on Tuesday December 18.NLMK will boost blast furnace (BF) No6 capacity by 8%, to 3.4 million tonnes per year, thus, the company will add around 250,000 tpy of pig iron capacity, Fastmarkets understands. Currently, the company is installing new blas...Read More
French bank Natixis, information technology firm IBM and commodities trading group Trafigura have been working together for some time on a blockchain project for commodity trade finance in crude oil transactions in the United States. The end result is a distributed ledger platform, built on the Linux Foundation open-source Hyperledger Fabric, that is designed to modernize the largely paper-heavy g...Read More
Glencore's Katanga Mining Ltd will pay the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) around $22.5 million as part of a settlement over the copper-cobalt producer's historical disclosures.The payments are C$1.5 million ($1.2 million) in costs along with a voluntary payment of C$28.5 million.The company, which operates the Kamoto Copper Company in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), has also agreed to...Read More
Aqua Metals is nearing completion of the first phase of its two-stage capital improvement program, as well as implementing its plan to begin processing a portion of hard metallic lead into lead ingots. The California, United States-based company, whose AquaRefining technology is designed to recycle lead in a room-temperature, water-based process that emits significantly less pollution, expects to...Read More
Wang Chi-wei, a former vice president of Jiangxi Copper, has been officially arrested on corruption charges, the Supreme People's Procuratorate of the People's Republic of China said in a statement on Tuesday December 18.The arrest is based on an investigation carried out by the city of Nanchang's Supervisory Commission since October. Jiangxi Copper's 900,000 tpy Guixi smelter, the largest in Chin...Read More
The latest metal markets news and price moves to start the North American day on Tuesday December 18.Base metals on the London Metal Exchange were lower across the board during morning trading on Tuesday December 18, with a broad sell-off across the complex capping prices and another fresh inflow of over 57,000 tonnes of aluminium restricting price action.After more than 104,000 tonnes of aluminiu...Read More
Arbitrage for copper, aluminium, zinc and nickel imported into China on Tuesday December 18*Copper -$119.12 (-823.87yuan)Aluminium -$425.13 (-2,940.21 yuan) Zinc -$115.93 ( -801.79 yuan) Nickel $247.23 (1,709.87 yuan) *Fastmarkets calculates the physical arbitrage for import...Read More
Christian Keidel joined downstream aluminium product producer Aludium at the start of December in the role of metal management director, Fastmarkets MB understands.Prior to joining Aludium, which comprises three former Alcoa mills in Spain and France, Keidel had been in charge of strategic purchasing at Constellium since January 2012....Read More
Base metals on the London Metal Exchange were lower across the board during morning trading on Tuesday December 18, with a broad sell-off across the complex capping prices, while another fresh inflow of more than 57,000 tonnes of aluminium did little to spur price action. After more than 104,000 tonnes of aluminium inflows this week, including a net inflow of 57,700 tonnes today, the metal's three...Read More
The latest news and price moves to start the Asian day on Wednesday December 19.Base metal prices on the London Metal Exchange were mostly lower at the close of trading on Tuesday December 18, with continued strength in the US dollar index limiting price action while lead futures gained more than 2% against a backdrop of multiyear lows in LME inventories. Read more in our live futures report.Here...Read More