Gold has big year in 2020 and outlook for this year robust. Learn about monetary expansion and gold future prices.Read More

The gold futures price reached US$1,767/ounce this week before retreating, which was the second time it has surpassed US$1,760 in the past two months, marking some of gold's highest levels in several years.Read More

Comex copper prices hit a one-week high Thursday August 9 morning in the US amid a general technical increase across the base metals complex....Read More

China's hot-rolled coil prices fell on Thursday August 9, dragged down by low demand....Read More

Although base metals are under pressure in the short term, we have a bullish bias to our 2018 price forecasts given the supportive background of solid global economic growth and the fact that all six base metal markets look set to be in fundamental deficit this year. But each has a slightly different supply-side story and this aspect should be the main differentiator. For example, zinc's narrative...Read More

Despite Chinese winter smelter production cuts generally falling short of expectations and domestic stocks continuing to climb - both of which suggest the market remains far more comfortably supplied at this point than aluminium bulls had been anticipating - prices still rallied into the year-end to reach $2,290/tonne for the first time since March 2012.And after a New Year pull-back the strength...Read More

Copper prices were working lower during most of December and in the absence of any bullish triggers we had been expecting that trend to continue. But in late December, fund buying picked up aggressively, driving prices to a fresh multi-year high of $7,203/tonne. There was little fundamental justification for this and we should consider it a warning that speculators and investors feeling optimistic...Read More

Lead prices remain on their steady uptrend since the summer lows last year and in January have been eroding resistance around October's 6-year high above $2,600/tonne. We expect the underlying strengthening fundamentals, especially on the supply side, to maintain the uptrend this year. Primary producers may well struggle to respond to higher lead prices and we doubt there is much hoarded scrap aro...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

CLICK ON CHART TO ENLARGEThe chart looks at the price patterns of the Aussie Dollar over the past 20-years.The trend on the AU$ is up over the past couple of decades and it is down since peaking back in 2011.The decline of late has the AU$ testing 17-year rising support and the apex of a potential bullish falling wedge at the same time.Should the AU$ happen to hold at support and break above resis...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

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

The closure of some induction furnaces in China in 2016 followed by the government's crackdown on all unlicensed IFs in mid-2017 freed up some scrap volumes, albeit arguably of low-quality material. Chinese domestic scrap prices came under pressure from the increased supply, which prevented them from keeping pace with the rise in steel and other raw material markets in the fourth quarter of 2016;...Read More

About a year ago, metallurgical coal embarked on a long journey of great volatility and disruption. It emerged as the best performing commodity in 2016 after several years of declining prices. Prices have dropped and spiked several times since then and the volatility continued in 2017 with a cyclone disrupting the market and eventually also affecting the way the commodity is priced. Although therm...Read More

LUSAKA, Aug 9 (Reuters) - Vedanta Resources' Zambian unit said on Thursday work at its Konkola Copper Mine was stopped after one miner was killed in an underground accident to allow for investigations into the incident, the company said. In July production was halted at the same shaft, shaft 4, after a miner died in an accident.Vedanta said in June it planned to double copper production at Konkola...Read More

Aug 9 (Reuters) - Canadian miner Nevsun Resources Ltd on Thursday urged its shareholders to reject a hostile C$1.4 billion ($1.07 billion) offer from rival Lundin Mining Corp, and said the board was evaluating other potential alternatives.Lundin took its all-cash offer of C$4.75 per share directly to Nevsun shareholders on July 26, after its five previous proposals were rejected by the company.V...Read More

Perth-based junior, Sunstone Metals, is selling its Viscaria Copper Project to Copperstone Resources AB, a copper focused exploration company based in Sweden, for US$30.3 million. The project will be run as partnership between the two companies and will be named the Viscaria Copper Project. The two companies have just signed a non-biding letter of intent. Completion of the deal is subject to closi...Read More

The past year, soaring metallurgical coal prices have greatly affected the costs involved in producing pig iron, a form of crude iron which is the product of the blast furnace. Metal Bulletin Research's Global Steel Cost Service details how coking coal and coke costs usually averaged around 35% of total pig iron production expenditure in 2014 and 2015 while iron ore stood for the majority of costs...Read More

Teck Resources received regulatory approval for its Quebrada Blanca Phase 2 project in the Tarapac?? Region in northern Chile.Yesterday, Teck said that the regional Environmental Committee of Tarapac?? voted to approve the project's Environmental Impact Assessment.The mine is expected to generate 300,000 tonnes of copper equivalent production per year for the first five years of mine life.Teck est...Read More

* Markets worry about trade war, China crude demand* Iraq cuts selling price of crude cargoes bound for Asia* U.S. gasoline supply now seen as "sufficient" (Updates with settlement prices)By Jessica Resnick-AultNEW YORK, Aug 9 (Reuters) - Crude prices settled slightly lower on Thursday, extending the previous session's losses as the escalating China-U.S. trade dispute casts doubt over th...Read More