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
* Codelco signs large supply deals with major clients* Asia including China accounts for about 50 percent of sales* Copper price down 20 percent from JuneLONDON/BEIJING - Chilean state miner Codelco has agreed to sell France's Nexans, China's Minmetals and U.S.-based Southwire 50,000 to 100,000 tonnes of copper each from 2019 to 2021 in rolling deals known as "evergreens", sources close to the mat...Read More
More than half of the copper mines in Zambia, Africa's second-biggest producer of the metal, will probably be unprofitable next year with thousands of jobs on the line, as the nation raises taxes for operators, the country's biggest industry lobby group said.The effective tax rate will range from 86 percent to 105 percent, with about 27,900 jobs at risk, the Zambia Chamber of Mines said in a state...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
American engineering company Bechtel, ranked #11 on Forbes' America's private company list for 2018, announced this week that it opened the Bechtel Mining & Metals Innovation Center in Chile with the goal of developing new technologies that boost productivity, promote environmental sustainability and improve worker safety for the copper industry.In a press release, Bechtel said that the cente...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
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