Global ferrous scrap prices continued to trend downward during the working week from Monday November 26 to Friday November 30, due to poor demand and lackluster sales of finished steel.Turkish scrap import prices and US export scrap prices fell due to weak market sentiment in Asia, while persistently poor demand continued to weigh on Asian scrap import prices. Indian import prices also slipped on...Read More
Sentiment in the European austenitic alloy scrap market has been negative and mills have continued to drag prices downward, sources told Fastmarkets on Friday November 30."Demand [for alloy steel scrap] is slow and sentiment in both the raw material and stainless steel markets is negative. The mills are trying to get...Read More
Domestic prices for stainless steel in Europe have remained under pressure from competitive trading, both with imports from Asia and between domestic suppliers, sources told Fastmarkets on Friday November 30.Transaction prices for grade-304 cold-rolled (CR) stainless sheets were assessed at ?,?2,100-2,150 ($2,389-2,446) per tonne delivered on November 30, down by ?,?50 per tonne from ?,?2,150-2,20...Read More
South African manganese ore miner United Manganese of Kalahari (UMK) has declared force majeure on manganese ore shipments from the port of Saldanha, Fastmarkets MB understands.UMK, which produces just above 3 million tonnes per year of manganese ore, ships about half its monthly exports from Saldanha. South Africa's state transport...Read More
The latest metal markets news and price moves to start the North American day on Friday November 30.Most base metals prices ticked higher in morning trading on the London Metal Exchange on Friday November 30, with lead the best performer of the morning.Lead led the complex gains, with the three-month...Read More
Good morning from Fastmarkets MB's offices in Asia as we bring you the latest news and pricing stories on Friday November 30.Base metals prices on the Shanghai Futures Exchange broadly consolidated during Asian morning trading on Friday, with the market focused on the upcoming Group of Twenty (G20) summit in Argentina - where US President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping are due...Read More
Fastmarkets rounds up some of the key news and price moves across the global metals markets this week.Base metalsCodelco's copper production and earnings fell in the first nine months of 2018, the Chilean state-owned copper producer said.Australian-Chinese miner MMG Ltd has completed the sale of its Sepon copper gold mine to China's Chifeng Jilong Gold Mining for $275 million, the company said.Alu...Read More
London Metal Exchange members are considering a multitude of ways to continue to service their EU clients in the event that a financial services deal is either not forthcoming or does not go far enough when the UK finally leaves the European Union. Some companies have even told their LME sales teams they need to be prepared to move to another major European city to be able to legally service their...Read More
If Brexit - the departure of the United Kingdom from the European Union on March 29, 2019 - isn't on your radar, it should be. With the annual London Metal Exchange Week now in full swing, the exchange, its members and their customers need to have contingency plans in place if they are expecting to be affected in any way by Brexit. And as with anything political, an element of brinkmanship will na...Read More
When the London Metal Exchange finished its 12-step warehouse reform package, it proved once more that you cannot please all of the people all of the time. It faced some inevitable criticism of the rules, in particular that the LME went too far in certain areas and should consider tweaking or rolling back some of its reforms. In particular, the focus of attention was on the load-in, load-out (LILO...Read More
Base metals prices on the London Metal Exchange closed higher on Friday November 30, with zinc, lead and nickel the best performers of the day.Zinc was the strongest performer on Friday, with its three-month price rising 2.9% from Thursday to close at $2,542 per tonne. After consistently dipping since January, LME zinc stocks settled at a fresh 2018-low of 117,550 tonnes on Friday.W...Read More
Comex copper prices experienced further weakness ahead of world leaders converging in Argentina for the Group of Twenty (G20) meeting this weekend.The copper price for March settlement on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange fell 1.80 cents to $2.7735 per lb.Price movement is expected to be muted today with investors focusing on the weekend's G20 summit, where finance ministers.....Read More
Seaborne iron ore prices weakened on Friday November 30 with market participants remaining cautious in their trading activity.MB 62% Fe Iron Ore Index: $65.95 per tonne cfr Qingdao, down by $0.56 per tonne.MB 62% Fe Pilbara Blend Fines Index: $65.22 per tonne cfr Qingdao, down by $0.56 per tonne.MB 62% Fe Iron Ore Index-Low Alumina: $68.76 per tonne cfr Qingdao, down by $0.54 per tonne.MB 58% Fe P...Read More
Although base metals are under pressure in the short term, we have a bullish bias to our 2018 price forecasts given the supportive background of solid global economic growth and the fact that all six base metal markets look set to be in fundamental deficit this year. But each has a slightly different supply-side story and this aspect should be the main differentiator. For example, zinc's narrative...Read More
Despite Chinese winter smelter production cuts generally falling short of expectations and domestic stocks continuing to climb - both of which suggest the market remains far more comfortably supplied at this point than aluminium bulls had been anticipating - prices still rallied into the year-end to reach $2,290/tonne for the first time since March 2012.And after a New Year pull-back the strength...Read More
Copper prices were working lower during most of December and in the absence of any bullish triggers we had been expecting that trend to continue. But in late December, fund buying picked up aggressively, driving prices to a fresh multi-year high of $7,203/tonne. There was little fundamental justification for this and we should consider it a warning that speculators and investors feeling optimistic...Read More
Lead prices remain on their steady uptrend since the summer lows last year and in January have been eroding resistance around October's 6-year high above $2,600/tonne. We expect the underlying strengthening fundamentals, especially on the supply side, to maintain the uptrend this year. Primary producers may well struggle to respond to higher lead prices and we doubt there is much hoarded scrap aro...Read More
The Indian government's plans of hitting 300 million tonnes of steel capacity by 2030 sounds overambitious in the current scenario given that output only managed to reach the 101 million tonne mark in 2017 - indicating three-fold (Read More
After suffering for some seven years through to 2015, the world's steelmakers have had cause for cheer over the past couple of years. After some heavy losses and write-downs, they finally appear to have emerged from the wreckage of the global financial crisis. An economic upswing has taken root in most regions of the world, Chinese steel output and export growth has slowed noticeably, and steel pr...Read More
For a number of years problems at Ilva, the largest steelworks in Europe, have been casting shadow over the performance of the whole Italian steel industry. Will an acquisition of Ilva by a consortium led by ArcelorMittal, now in its final stage, be a game changer for the market?Following multiple reports of environmental and health problems caused by the Taranto plant, in 2013 Ilva was placed und...Read More