The smooth unloading of a stranded alumina cargo locked in China's Bayuquan port calmed sentiment in the Chinese alumina market on June 17, sources said.Offers for port material rose to 2,550 yuan ($398.37) per tonne on June 15, up 30 yuan per tonne from a week earlier, after news of the quarantined ship became widely known, sources said. "Offers rose after the news [of the trapped ship] but low s...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
Fastmarkets will launch a monthly assessment of the discount for No1 copper material, candy/berry, on a cif China basis on June 28. After a consultation period, Fastmarkets has decided to launch a monthly assessment of the discount for No1 copper material, candy/berry, on a cif China basis. Over the consultation period from May 5 to June 7, buying interest in No1 copper material remained stro...Read More
Joseph Carrabba, formerly chairman, president and chief executive officer of Cleveland-Cliffs, has been named CEO of ElementUS Minerals, the company has said.Carrabba was at Cleveland-Cliffs, at one point known as Cliffs Natural Resources, from 2005 to 2013. Prior to this, he had spent more than 20 years in executive leadership at Rio Tinto, holding positions in its North American, Australian, Asi...Read More
The latest forecasts from Fastmarkets' team of analysts are ready to view.Bulk ferro-alloy prices have shown impressive gains again this month, with ferro-silicon, silicon metal and manganese alloy prices all making significant increases. Noble alloy markets also enjoyed upward momentum, with both vanadium and molybdenum prices rising sharply.Recovering demand from steelmakers globally, together w...Read More
Here are five Fastmarkets stories you might have missed on Thursday June 17 that are worth another look.Vale is testing the use of unmanned trains at its Mariana iron ore complex to transport ore to the Timbopeba plant in a bid to reverse a recent state-ordered stoppage, it said on...Read More
The latest forecasts from Fastmarkets' team of analysts are ready to view.Chinese blast furnace (BF) utilization rates have stagnated and iron ore port stock volumes are rising, reaching their highest levels since March, which suggests that iron ore supply is becoming excessive while demand is not growing. Unsurprisingly, prices dropped last week and we expect the trend to continue. The market has...Read More
China's domestic rebar prices continued dropping on Thursday June 17, but the pace of the decline was much slower after a pick-up in futures values driven by market participant expectations of a fall in supplies.DomesticEastern China (Shanghai): 4,970-5,000 yuan ($773-778) per tonne, down by 10 yuan per tonneThe Work Safety Commission of China's State Council has sent teams to steel mills to check...Read More
The latest forecasts from Fastmarkets' team of analysts are ready to view.Global welded pipe prices surged in May as strong demand and still-insufficient supply lifted flat steel prices.The biggest jumps were seen in China, which was hit by the unexpected announcement of the elimination of export rebates on welded pipes in April. Chinese seaborne prices reached $1,570 per tonne fob for longitudina...Read More
Brazilian apparent steel consumption soared by 83% year on year in May, according to figures from national steel institute, A??o Brasil.Apparent steel use reached 2.50 million tonnes in May compared with 1.37 million tonnes in the same month in 2020, the institute said on Thursday June 17.Consumption of flat-steel products rose 98.90% to 1.45 million tonnes from 730,000 tonnes in the same comparis...Read More
Turkish steel mills extended their silence in the deep-sea scrap market on Thursday June 17, with market participants reporting no new bookings for the second day in a row and describing the market as "quiet."Two cargoes heard booked earlier in the week, but brought scrap prices down by $10 per tonne. This week, Turkish steel mills have mostly focused on selling rebar in the export market, with Fa...Read More
Copper's price fall and a higher US dollar index were the main factors in a decline in London Metal Exchange base metals prices for a fourth day on the morning of Thursday June 17, with most down by at least 1%.The three-month copper contract on the LME was at $9,459.50 per tonne at 9am London time on Thursday, down by 2.1% from its $9,667 per tonne closing price on Wednesday. The contract fell to...Read More
Volkswagen Group is seeking partnerships with battery raw material producers in order to vertically integrate and achieve security of supply and competitive prices for its minerals needs, a spokesperson for the German automaker told Fastmarkets on Thursday June 17.This is in line with the company's strategy to move forward with the electrification of its fleet. Besides gaining security of supply,...Read More
Hot-rolled coil prices in China's domestic market edged higher on Thursday June 17 while the ferrous complex rose across the board on supply concerns, sources told Fastmarkets.DomesticEastern China (Shanghai): 5,480-5,500 yuan ($853-856) per tonne, up by 20-40 yuan per tonne.Spot prices climbed up on Thursday, while the most-traded HRC contract on the Shanghai Futures Exchange clawed back about 90...Read More
U.S. equity index futures were lower this morning. S&P 500 futures were down 30 points in pre-opening trade.Volume on U.S. equity, futures and options exchanges is expected to surge. Today is "quadruple witching day" when June equity and index options and futures expire. Adobe added $10.54 to $561.90 after reporting higher than consensus second quarter revenues and earnings. Target on the stoc...Read More
The latest forecasts from Fastmarkets' team of base metals analysts are ready to view, including an upgrade to our aluminium price forecasts.Aluminium: Price forecasts raisedWe correctly expected the macro reflationary theme to raise the prices for all base metals but, with it being the base metal with by far the weakest fundamentals, we had expected the price of aluminium to underperform relative...Read More
China produced about 326.29 million tonnes of unprocessed coal in May 2021, up by a slight 0.6% year on year but down by 1.8% from April. Coal production has been capped by frequent inspections from central and local authorities at major coal mines in northern China in April and May to ensure safety measures and environmental protection measures are being followed, sources said. Some mines which h...Read More
Copper's price fall and a higher US dollar index were the main factors in a decline in London Metal Exchange base metals prices for a fourth day on the morning of Thursday June 17, with most down by at least 1%.The three-month copper contract on the LME was at $9,459.50 per tonne at 9am London time on Thursday, down by 2.1% from its $9,667 per tonne closing price on Wednesday. The contract fell to...Read More
China's domestic stainless steel prices rose in the week ended Wednesday June 16, building upon gains accrued since late May, but market participants expect the upward momentum to halt in the near term. One reason behind this bearish view is the weakness exhibited in nickel futures in recent days.The three-month nickel contract on the London Metal Exchange ended the official trading session on Wed...Read More
Trading activity in the European heavy plate market slowed in the week to Wednesday June 16 and buyers stayed in wait-and-see mode, sources told Fastmarkets."We have almost zero buying and zero selling activity this week," a German distributor said.Availability is also limited from European suppliers."The delivery time from German steelmakers is October-November. On top of that, Salzgitter is faci...Read More