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
Since its merger with Xstrata, Glencore - previously a trading and marketing firm - has become a mining firm whose earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization is dominated by earnings from its industrial activities. The recent appointment of Peter Freyberg as head of the company's industrial mining assets, a newly created position with oversight and responsibility for all Glenco...Read More
US - China trade tensions weighed on copper miners in 2018 as fears of a global economic slowdown overshadowed other fundamentals. Meanwhile gold producers struggled as bullion lost its safe-haven luster until late in the year.What's ahead in 2019?We asked four top executives from companies including Newmont Mining Corp. and Teck Resources Ltd. for their outlooks. From dealing with debt to dividen...Read More
Fastmarkets MB looks back at a year of changes in the ores and alloys markets.Manganese ore market stabilityManganese ore prices were relatively stable in2018, following two years of unprecedented volatility. This was the first yearsince 2016 that did not end in a sharp rally, resulting in a dull year fortraders, but a lucrative time for producers. The market has been underpinned bystrong demand f...Read More
A requirement for a higher energy density for new EV battery projects has been removed from the official regulations on automobile industry investment published by the country's National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) on its website. The energy density threshold was removed from the final version of the regulations on Tuesday December 18 owing to the fact that current technology is not d...Read More
Harvey says JP Morgan was adding silver for most of 2017, and now the bullion bank has added nearly every single day this year. Here's an update...by Harvey Organ of Harvey Organ BlogDEC 19/THE FED CONTINUES TO BE RECKLESS AS THEY RAISE INTEREST RATES 1/4% IN A DECLINING ECONOMY AND ARE HAWKISH GOING INTO 2019//USA RATES ARE INVERTING INDICATING RECESSION/ DOW JONES FALTERS OVER 350 POINTS/GOLD CL...Read More
Base metals prices on the London Metal Exchange were mixed at the close of trading on Thursday December 20, with a continued retreat in the US dollar index failing to spur upward price action amid broadly moderate volumes.Closing at a fresh 2018 low of $1,912 per tonne, the three-month aluminium price fell to its lowest level since August 2017 at $1,905.50 per tonne amid announcement of the US Tre...Read More
The Comex copper price failed to maintain momentum after the US Federal Reserve increased interest rates and signalled a hawkish monetary policy strategy for 2019.The copper price for March settlement on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange dipped 2.00 cents to $2.69 per lb."Both the Fed's policy statement and Jay Powell's news conference came across as more hawkish than...Read More
The London Metal Exchange has initiated a process of market feedback following the US Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) intention to remove sanctions against UC Rusal and En+ Group, issuing both a member note and press statement on Wednesday December 19. In accordance with OFAC's decision to notify Congress of its plans to terminate sanctions - inclusive of...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
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
Don't listen to what miners say. Look at what they do.That's good advice for working out the long-term direction of commodities prices. Ask mining companies which of their mineral assets will see good long-term demand and they'll naturally answer, "All of them." But a look at spending can give the lie to that rosy outlook - and highlight the times when they're putting their money where their bulli...Read More
US - China trade tensions weighed on copper miners in 2018 as fears of a global economic slowdown overshadowed other fundamentals. Meanwhile gold producers struggled as bullion lost its safe-haven luster until late in the year.What's ahead in 2019?We asked four top executives from companies including Newmont Mining Corp. and Teck Resources Ltd. for their outlooks. From dealing with debt to dividen...Read More
Don't listen to what miners say. Look at what they do.That's good advice for working out the long-term direction of commodities prices. Ask mining companies which of their mineral assets will see good long-term demand and they'll naturally answer, "All of them." But a look at spending can give the lie to that rosy outlook - and highlight the times when they're putting their money where their bu...Read More
LONDON - The two-year rally in industrial metal prices came to an abrupt end at the start of June.The London Metal Exchange Index, a basket of the LME's major base metal contracts, hit a three-year high of 3499.6 in the first week of that month.Prices then imploded over the ensuing weeks and the blood-bath has continued ever since. The Index stood at 2845.5 as of Wednesday's close, back at mid-201...Read More