Major Vietnamese integrated steel producer Formosa Ha Tinh Steel has increased its new hot-rolled coil offers by $40 per tonne for April-delivery and shipment cargoes due to the recent increases in raw materials costs.The producer's SAE1006 HRC is now on offer at $535 per tonne on a cif basis, up $40 per tonne from $495 per tonne cif for iMarch-shipment materials. And its SS400 and pipemaking...Read More
Key data from the pricing sessions in Asia, Europe and the United States for the week ending Friday March 1. China The domestic ferro-chrome spot price rose to 6,850-7,100 yuan per tonne from 6,750-6,950 yuan per tonne a week before after domestic suppliers lifted their prices following Tsingshan's announcement that it had raised its tender price by 100 yuan per tonne on February 25. The news broa...Read More
Steel slab export prices from Brazil inched up in the week ended Friday March 1 because of lower volumes available and an uptrend in steel prices in the United States.Fastmarkets' weekly assessment of Brazilian slab export prices reached $500-540 per tonne fob on March 1, up from $490-530 per tonne fob a week earlier.The assessment was at its highest level since September 7, 2018, when prices were...Read More
Domestic prices for rebar in Poland have been supported by strong demand this week, sources told Fastmarkets on Friday March 1.Fastmarkets' price assessment for domestic 12mm B500B-grade rebar in Poland was 2,200-2,320 zloty ($581-613) per tonne ex-works on March 1, compared with 2,220-2,320 zloty per tonne ex-works a week earlier.The assessment reflected deals and offers heard in the market. Alth...Read More
Global steel scrap prices began to edge up in Turkey this week while other key markets continued to lose ground, Fastmarkets heard during the week ended Friday March 1.Turkey succeeded in recovering some of its recent losses in new bookings, but these remained sparse and mills were still reluctant to enter the market. The US market continued to stagnate while prices in Asia edged down further due...Read More
Ahead of Fastmarkets' Battery Materials 2019 conference in Shanghai, Fastmarkets looks at use of lithium in next-generation vehicles and other battery uses, as well as soaring prices, which have spurred interest in lithium and boosted its importance in recent years as a battery material. In June 2016, the spot price in China peaked at $27 per kg, more than three times the global contract price, ac...Read More
Section 232 tariffs on aluminium and steel raised $3.6 billion in their first nine months, and revenues for the last two months are likely to push that figure up by around another $1 billion, US government data shows.That figure would be enough to cover the shortfall in funding sought by United States President Donald Trump for border security. In other words, aluminium and steel tariffs could fun...Read More
Copper-starved LME warehouses could receive a long-awaited influx of metal from an unexpected source, Fastmarkets has learned.Smelters in China, the world's largest copper consuming country, are said to have been exporting tens of thousands of tonnes of cathodes into Shanghai's bonded warehouses over the past two weeks before shipping further afield.Three individual plants have exported at least 7...Read More
Copper premiums basis cif Shanghai could fall further even after a recent collapse, Shanghai market participants told Fastmarkets. Copper cathode premiums are being pressured lower due to a steep backwardation in the London Metal Exchange cash/three-month forward spread of more than $40 per tonne as well as sluggish end-user demand in China. Fastmarkets assessed the grade A copper cathode pre...Read More
Base metals prices on the London Metal Exchange were mixed at the close of trading on Friday March 1, with a continued trend of record-low inventories failing to spur persistent price rallies amid broad strength in the US dollar index. Both copper and nickel futures remain well supported, while volumes were moderate over the afternoon, with copper leading the complex at 19,890 lots changing hands...Read More
The London Metal Exchange has released its pricing procedures and methodologies for the scheduled release of its cash-settled futures contracts on March 11, highlighting methods in which the bourse will determine daily settlement prices. In its note to members on Friday March 1, the LME lists select specifications for each of the contracts inclusive of currency, lot size and trading time, while it...Read More
Copper-starved LME warehouses could receive a long-awaited influx of metal from an unexpected source, Fastmarkets has learned.Smelters in China, the world's largest copper consuming country, are said to have been exporting tens of thousands of tonnes of cathodes into Shanghai's bonded warehouses over the past two weeks before shipping further afield.Three individual plants have exported at least 7...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
China ended steel production in all of the country's illegal induction furnaces by the end of June last year, it ha claimed.Most operators in China are primarily small private mills that use low-quality scrap to produce substandard rebar. This is mixed with grade III (HRB400) rebar and sold at a discount to construction contractors.For a long period, the government had neither a record of nor cont...Read More
China's month-on-month new electric vehicles (NEV) sales rebounded in August after month-on-month declines in June and July. The drop in sales between May and June was the first drop since September 2016, but Fastmarkets MB had expected Chinese NEV sales to dip temporarily after the June subsidy changes came into effect because consumers and NEV manufacturers would have to adjust to the new subsid...Read More
Iron ore prices fell sharply in the second half of November after climbing through October, with prices for higher-grade material pioneering the decline.Fastmarkets MB daily benchmark for 65% Fe fines dropped by 22% by Monday November 26 after peaking on October 29. The 62% Fe iron ore index declined by 16% over the period, as some Chinese steelmakers started to seek larger volumes of cheaper ores...Read More
The steel scrap sector in the United States still depends on exports to Turkey, a member of the Fastmarkets research team said during the ferrous session at the Bureau of International Recycling (BIR) conference in London.This dependence persists despite the changes in the international markets created by the US' imposition of its Section 232 tariffs on imports of steel products, metals analyst Le...Read More
Seaborne pig iron has become relatively competitive versus ferrous scrap over the past year in most regions, and China is no exception. As the first chart below illustrates, the gap between the MBR's proxy for imported pig iron price in China and the Metal Bulletin's Chinese domestic heavy melt scrap price assessment had shrunk by late 2017. The premium averaged $17 per tonne this year to date, co...Read More