Slower spot activity prevented any changes to the US Midwest aluminium premium although deals were still concluded at high end of Fastmarkets' assessment range on Tuesday August 24.While a lack of market liquidity combined with slow demand kept European and Asian premiums static, Brazilian premiums rose slightly thanks to higher offers.US Midwest market flat after reaching record highPremiums in E...Read More
Export prices for steel billet from the Commonwealth of Independent States continued to fall in the week to Wednesday August 25, with lower sales and bids heard.Latin American demand remained strong, with a 30,000-35,000 tonne Ukraine-origin cargo sold at $610 per tonne fob Black Sea, sources said. This is $20 per tonne cheaper than in bookings in the region in the first half of August.Other marke...Read More
Iron ore prices mostly increased on Wednesday August 25 despite weaker trading activity in the physical market, especially at Chinese ports, sources told Fastmarkets.Fastmarkets iron ore indices62% Fe fines, cfr Qingdao: $148.66 per tonne, up by $2.53 per tonne62% Fe low-alumina fines, cfr Qingdao: $148.95 per tonne, up by $0.99 per tonne58% Fe fines high-grade premium, cfr Qingdao: $116.96 per to...Read More
Export prices for steel billet from the Commonwealth of Independent States continued to fall in the week to Wednesday August 25, with lower sales and bids heard.Latin American demand remained strong, with a 30,000-35,000 tonne Ukraine-origin cargo sold at $610 per tonne fob Black Sea, sources said. This is $20 per tonne cheaper than in bookings in the region in the first half of August.Other marke...Read More
Trading remained thin in China's steel plate export market in the week to Tuesday August 24 due to the resurgence of Covid-19 cases, uncompetitive offer prices and uncertainty surrounding China's export tax.Fastmarkets' price assessment for October-shipment steel heavy plate export, fob China main port was $915-925 per tonne on Tuesday, down by $20-25 per tonne from a week earlier.Yingkou Medium P...Read More
The latest forecasts from Fastmarkets' team of analysts is ready to view.With nickel prices down by almost 20% over the space of around ten days during late February and early March, one might have been expecting us to be reporting sharply-lower prices of stainless steel, at least for the most common nickel-containing grades of stainless steel.This is not the case, at least in Europe and the Unite...Read More
Buyers in China and the Philippines have recently booked a handful of steel billet import cargoes, leading to a rise in offer prices in the past day, sources told Fastmarkets on Wednesday August 25.Demand for physical cargoes of imported billet in China has been hampered by volatile futures markets over the past week, while interest in Southeast Asia has been hurt by ongoing battles with Covid-19...Read More
The export market for flat-rolled steel products from the Commonwealth of Independent States went down over the week to Wednesday August 25 on weak iron ore pricing and soft demand.Fastmarkets' weekly assessment of the price for steel hot-rolled coil, export, fob Black Sea, CIS, was $890-895 per tonne on Wednesday, down from $915-925 per tonne a week earlier.A sale of Ukraine-origin HRC was made t...Read More
An overview of the chrome ore and alloy markets in Asia, Europe and the United States on Tuesday August 24, and their latest price moves.ChinaThe UG2 chrome ore market was inactive; most participants waited for the release of September ferro-chrome tender prices from major stainless steel mills. Although ore consumption ramped up following improved power supply in Inner Mongolia, many smelters sti...Read More
As the world's media spotlight falls on Afghanistan, Fastmarkets looks at why reported claims of incoming Chinese mining deals are unlikely to be fulfilled soon.Mes Aynak, Afghanistan's most well-known copper project, means "small copper deposit" in Pashto. Indications suggest it is anything but.The deposit holds 240 million tonnes of 2.3% grade copper ore, according to the United States Geologica...Read More
A summary of China's base metals imports for July 2021, according to Chinese customs data released on Friday August 20.Copper ore and concentrateJuly total: 1.89 tonnes, up by 12.9% month on month, up by 5.1% year on yearYear to date: 13.39 million tonnes, down by 10% year on yearRefined copperJuly total: 270,054 tonnes, down by 2.6% month on month, down by 52.5% year on yearYear to date: 2.07 mil...Read More
Turkish steel mills continued to stay away from the deep-sea scrap import markets for the second working day of the week amid limited finished steel sales, market participants told Fastmarkets on Tuesday August 24.The most recent deep-sea trade was reported at the end of the week to August 20, when a steel mill in the Iskenderun region booked a United States cargo composed of 20,000 tonnes of HMS...Read More
A summary of the financial and performance results for China Molybdenum for the first half of 2021, published on Monday August 23.In briefRevenue from the company's mining and processing business totaled 84.82 billion yuan ($13.07 billion) in the first half of 2021, up by 81.45% year-on-year. Net profit was 2.41 billion...Read More
A summary of the financial and performance results for China Molybdenum for the first half of 2021, published on Monday August 23.In briefRevenue from the company's mining and processing business totaled 84.82 billion yuan ($13.07 billion) in the first half of 2021, up by 81.45% year-on-year. Net profit was 2.41 billion...Read More
Domestic prices for hot-rolled coil were fairly stable in Northern Europe and Italy on Tuesday August 24 with both buyers and sellers holding back from trading activity, sources told Fastmarkets.Buyers started to return to the market this week after a slow period earlier in August, but no deals have been heard yet because the buyers wanted to assess the market trend first.They believed that the de...Read More
Hot-rolled coil (HRC) import prices to Saudi Arabia increased during the week ending Tuesday August 24; the market in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) was stable, sources told Fastmarkets.The market was slow in the UAE due to the summer season as well as to a lack of new projects, sources said.Saudi ArabiaChina offered HRC at $1,020-1,040 per tonne cfr Saudi Arabia, unchanged since last week.India o...Read More
Prices for hot- and cold-rolled steel sheet and heavy plate in Russia's Central Federal District around Moscow continued to fall in the week ended Monday August 23, sources have told Fastmarkets.Hot-rolled sheet and heavy plate prices decreased by 3-5% week on week, while the drop for cold-rolled sheet prices was more pronounced at 10% week on week.Opinions varied about why this happened. One trad...Read More
Domestic rebar producers in the United Arab Emirates reduced their prices on Tuesday August 24 amid low demand, sources told Fastmarkets.Demand was low because of the summer slowdown and falling prices; buyers preferred to wait to determine how much further prices will fall.The country's biggest producer, Emirates Steel, offered rebar at 2,610 dirhams ($710.46) per tonne, down from 2,957 dirh...Read More
Here are five Fastmarkets stories you might have missed on Tuesday August 24 that are worth another look....Read More
Aluminium's three-month price on the London Metal Exchange, backed by a constrained physical market, was just $5.50 per tonne short of its latest year-to-date high on Tuesday August 24, with nickel and zinc also climbing back above key psychological levels while most commodities and equities ticked upward.Aluminium's futures contract showed an intraday high of $2,636.50 per tonne on Tuesday, just...Read More