The latest forecasts from Fastmarkets' team of analysts are ready to view.In the iron ore market, supply issues including heavy rains at the start of the year, followed by staffing problems during the Covid-19 pandemic, have affected exports from Brazil. This has helped Australia gain a larger market share, but since June, Brazilian export volumes have returned to levels last seen before the...Read More
Stainless steel prices continue to register new highs around the end of the first half of 2021 and steelmakers continue to enjoy outsized margins.They have responded in recent months by increasing their output, which has now pushed above pre-pandemic levels and will eventually restore balance to the market.For now, though, supply gaps are still being filled and buyers find themselves competing aga...Read More
The latest forecasts from Fastmarkets' team of analysts is ready to view.Recent weeks have brought two key developments with regard to trade policy on stainless steel products that will be to the detriment of consumers.In China, the country's stainless steelmakers no longer enjoy a 13% export rebate as of May 1, reducing greatly their incentive to export and instead leading them to focus on supply...Read More
The latest forecasts from Fastmarkets' team of analysts is ready to view.Stainless steel prices and margins for stainless steel producers have risen notably over the past few months in both Europe and the United States, but there are now signs that the rally is petering out.A clear reason for the halt to rising prices comes from the near 20% drop in nickel prices seen in late February/early March,...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
First Cobalt has held preliminary discussions with Canadian government officials on the creation of a lithium-ion battery park on the same site as its battery materials hydrometallurgical refinery north of Toronto, the company said.The goal is to attract a precursor manufacturer to the site to recycle black mass from spent lithium-ion batteries, recovering nickel and cobalt in the process, it note...Read More
The European hot-rolled coil market remained quiet on Thursday July 15 on seasonally slow trading, with prices largely unchanged, supported by strong order books at steel mills and long lead times, sources told Fastmarkets.European buyers were still abstaining from making large bookings due to the still-high prices and sufficient stocks at most distributors. Exhausted credit lines were also limiti...Read More
Aluminium producer UC Rusal will pass through some of the Russian government's proposed export duty, scheduled to take effect in August, to its customers rather than absorb the entire tax, a source close to the company has confirmed.Aluminium market participants were bracing for the imposition of export duties on Russian material, after the country's government authorized the taxes on a range of m...Read More
PT Freeport has said it will continue with building a new copper smelter in Indonesia on its own, the latest twist in a saga that has run for almost a decade.The company, which is a subsidiary of US mining company Freeport McMoRan, will begin constructing a new smelter able to process 1.7 million tonnes of copper concentrates per year, its spokesperson Riza Pratama told Reuters on July...Read More
Import activity for copper cathodes into China rose on Thursday July 15, supported by improved arbitrage opportunity between London and Shanghai futures markets.The loss for importing the red metal into the country has been narrowing in the week to July 15. This, together with a rise of spot premiums in China's domestic copper market, buoyed buyers' profits. Fastmarkets' calculated the copper...Read More
Packaging company Ball Corporation is planning to build new plants in western Russia and in the East Midlands region of the UK, adding billions more cans per year to existing capacity from 2023, the company has said.Ball is based in the US state of Colorado. It said that increasing consumer demand for more sustainable purchasing options, and the adoption of cans by a growing number of new brands a...Read More
Chinalco Shanxi New Material Co suspended production on an alumina line at its refinery in Shanxi province last weekend, removing 500,000 tonnes per year from its annual output, sources told Fastmarkets on Thursday July 15.The subsidiary of the state-owned Aluminum Corporation of China (Chinalco), has an annual capacity of 2.5 million tpy - although that has been reduced to 1.7 million tpy since t...Read More
Hot-rolled coil prices in the United States remained near $91 per hundredweight ($1,820 per short ton) on Thursday July 15, one day after exceeding that threshold for the first time.Fastmarkets' daily steel hot-rolled coil index, fob mill US was calculated at $90.93 per cwt ($1,818.60 per ton) on July 15, down by 0.44% from $91.33 per cwt on Wednesday July 14 but up by 1.63% from $89.47 per cwt on...Read More
Steel reinforcing bar prices in the United States increased on Wednesday July 14 for the first time since June 16. Fastmarkets' assessment for steel rebar, fob mill US was $49 per hundredweight ($980 per short ton) on Wednesday, up 2.08% from $48 per cwt the previous week and up 70.44% from $28.75 per cwt at the same time last year.US marketNucor Corp and Mid-Continent Steel and Wire each increase...Read More
A summary of operational results for Russia's largest steelmaker, Novolipetsk Steel (NLMK), for January-June 2021 compared with the same period of last yearIn brief NLMK group sales of 8.24 million tonnes were down by 7% year on year from 8.86 million tonnes. Sales in its home markets, which include Russia, the US, Belgium, Italy and France, increased by 3% to 5.5 million tonnes from 5.36 million...Read More
Demand for steel rebar and billet in Egypt was subdued in the week to Thursday July 15 because buyers preferred to wait until after the upcoming Eid al-Adha holiday before conducting new business, sources told Fastmarkets.Eid al-Adha is expected to take place next week and market participants did not want to make any bookings before the four-and-a-half-day religious holiday.At the same time, uncer...Read More
Domestic prices for hot-dipped galvanized coil in northern Europe were stable in the week to Wednesday July 14 despite a decline in offers for overseas material, sources told Fastmarkets.Fastmarkets' weekly price assessment for steel hot-dipped galvanized coil import, cfr main port Northern Europe was ?,?1,200-1,240 ($1,417-1,464) per tonne on July 14, down by ?,?50-60 per tonne week on week from...Read More
China's steel industry is driving a change towards carbon-neutral or low carbon-based steel production in response to national plans to reach peak carbon by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2060.Carbon neutrality is a shared challenge for the global steel industry but China faces some unique ones, Frank Zhong, the chief representative in Beijing of the World Steel Association (Worldsteel), said on Th...Read More
Turkish steel producers were inactive in the deep-sea scrap import markets on Thursday July 15 due to a public holiday in the country, sources have told Fastmarkets.Steel and scrap trading were expected to slow in the coming weeks because of several public and religious holidays. Turkish market participants were not at work on Thursday with the country...Read More
The coking coal market in China slightly inched down on Thursday July 15. The fob coking coal market held steady without much firm buying interest for August-laycan cargoes on the same day, sources told Fastmarkets.Fastmarkets indicesPremium hard coking coal, fob DBCT: $210.15 per tonne, up $0.12 per tonnePremium hard coking coal, cfr Jingtang: $307.63 per tonne, down $0.69 per tonneHard coking co...Read More