Here are five Fastmarkets MB stories you might have missed on Friday July 19 that are worth another look.The London Metal Exchange will continue to push forward with relaxing its queue-based rent capping (QBRC) rule, a key area of warehousing reform, to 80 days, sources told Fastmarkets. Fastmarkets understands that there was a warehousing committee meeting on Thursday July 19, during which p...Read More
Rising tension over Iran and a reduction in expectations on the size of the next US Federal Reserve rate cut were weighing on sentiment this morning, Monday July 22.Last week the market started to price-in a 50-basis-point cut in the US benchmark interest rate at the Federal Open Market Committee’s (FOMC) July 30-31 meeting, but now a 25-basis–point cut now seems more likely as the proba...Read More
U.S. equity index futures moved higher this morning. S&P 500 futures were up 9 points in pre-opening trade.Walt Disney gained $1.40 to $141.25 after its latest movie, the relaunched "The Lion King" booked $185 million sales over the weekend in the U.S. Crude Oil added $0.64 to $56.27 after Iran captured a British licenced tanker near the Straits of Hormuz late on Friday. Halliburton gained $0....Read More
BHP expects its Western Australia Iron Ore operations to produce 273-286 million tonnes of the steelmaking raw material on a 100% basis over the next 12 months amid a significant maintenance program at the Port of Port Hedland, from which it ships its cargoes abroad."As part of this, a major car dumper maintenance campaign is planned for the September 2019 quarter, with a corresponding impact expe...Read More
Czech steelmaker Liberty Ostrava is increasing its steel prices by ?,?20 ($23) per tonne to partially offset an increase in production costs, the company told Fastmarkets on Tuesday July 16. "Recent increases in raw materials and energy costs and the prevailing steel prices in Europe necessitate an immediate response to avoid further margin squeezes for our steel business," the company said.O...Read More
Turkish steel producers remained quiet in the deep-sea scrap markets, awaiting some signs of recovery in the finished steel sector, sources said on Tuesday July 16.The last verified scrap deal was on July 9 when a steel mill in the Iskenderun region booked a UK cargo at $288 per tonne cfr for HMS 1&2 (80:20).Since then, Turkish steel mills have stayed away from the deep-sea markets...Read More
The dream of building a new world-class copper-gold mine in Pakistan in an area bordering Afghanistan and Iran has been dashed, for now at least. The saga of Tethyan Copper Co's (TCC) efforts to develop the Reko Diq mine found resolution last week with an International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) ruling in favor of TCC following a dispute that has rumbled on for years.TCC,...Read More
The London Metal Exchange has just finished its trial to calculate nickel prices using a volume weighted average price (VWAP) method on the exchange's electronic trading platform. If early indications are anything to go by, metals market participants did not embrace this method of price discovery in the way some had anticipated. For three months since Monday March 18, closing prices for nickel car...Read More
The United States Secretary of Commerce has joined the growing chorus of voices questioning the current method of setting the US Midwest aluminium premium. Wilbur Ross said the US Midwest aluminium premium is at inflated levels that do not justify the cost of transportation and logistical handling costs that it was originally designed to reflect. His view is being echoed by a number of...Read More
Base metals prices on the London Metal Exchange showed mixed results at the close of trading on Friday July 19, with continuing trade tensions and uncertainty at the United States Federal Reserve driving directionless trading across the complex."The complex continues to see cash sellers reign on the second-ring closes," Marex Spectron's morning report said. "And these have therefore presented a go...Read More
An overview of the battery raw materials markets and their latest price moves.Read More
The London Metal Exchange will continue to push forward with relaxing its queue-based rent capping (QBRC) rule, a key area of warehousing reform, to 80 days, sources told Fastmarkets. Fastmarkets understands that there was a warehousing committee meeting on Thursday July 19, during which plans on the warehousing reforms were put to warehousing members. Under the new proposal, warehouses will be ab...Read More
An overview of the battery raw materials markets and their latest price moves.Read More
The zinc price has been fluctuating so much this year that analysts still cannot agree on where it is headed. Commodities researchers from major banks surveyed by Fastmarkets differed by $500 per tonne on their second-half 2019 forecast - that is 23.7% of the galvanizing metal's current value. At $2,460 per tonne at the open on Friday July 19, the LME three-month zinc contract was just $10 down fr...Read More
North China copper smelter Baiyin Nonferrous Group's one-month shutdown in July has had limited impact on copper concentrates and outright copper prices in China, market sources told Fastmarkets. Baiyin Nonferrous Group will restart its 200,000-tonne-per-year smelter by the end of July after the facility was suspended in late June to complete a flash furnace upgrade, market sources told Fastmarket...Read More
Nyrstar lost ?,?31 million ($34.8 million) as a result of closing out inventory zinc and lead hedges in the first half of the year, the company said on Friday July 19. "Nyrstar realized a one-off cash benefit of approximately $40 million and since this time has been fully exposed to fluctuations in metal prices for its metal at risk," it said in an update from its 2018 annual results where it had...Read More
An overview of the minor metals markets and the reasons for any price moves.Read More
An overview of the battery raw materials markets and their latest price moves.Read More
Scrap prices in most global markets pushed upward in the week ended Friday July 19, in line with stronger Turkish import prices. But this excluded the Indian market, which was hurt by limited trading activity. Turkish import prices up week-on-week, bookings resume US export prices flat on East Coast, up on West Coast Asian import prices up on steady demand but upside limited Indian prices down on...Read More
The price of shredded ferrous scrap imported into India fell this week due to a lack of demand, sources told Fastmarkets on Friday July 19.Fastmarkets' weekly price for steel scrap, shredded, index, import, cfr Nhava Sheva, India, was $314.23 per tonne on July 19, down from $319.09 per tonne on July 12.Offer prices for shredded scrap moved down this week to $308-320 per tonne, from $315 to $3...Read More