An indigenous community in Peru has blocked Chinese miner MMG Ltd from using a road to transport copper from its massive Las Bambas mine to a port for shipment for the past 10 days, a lawyer representing the community said Friday.The community of Nueva Fuerabamba says the government illegally turned the road, which runs through its farmland, into a national highway, and wants to reach a deal with...Read More

The price of copper surged nearly 3% on Friday after stocks held in global warehouses operated by the LME fell to the lowest since 2005.Copper for delivery in March hit $2.9535 per pound ($6,510 a tonne) by midday on the Comex market, the highest level since the start of July last year. The price spiked in heavy volumes with nearly 1.5m tonnes worth $9.5 billion traded by lunchtime in New York.Glo...Read More

Chile's mines minister Baldo Prokurica on Friday maintained the government's 2019 copper price prediction of $3.05 per pound.Prokurica told a press conference in Santiago he was holding the price outlook amid optimism around US-China trade talks taking place in Washington at present.(By Marion Giraldo and Aislinn Laing; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)Read More

About 20 people died on Wednesday when a truck carrying acid to Glencore's Mutanda Mine in Democratic Republic of Congo collided with two other vehicles, Glencore said on Friday.The accident occurred in the evening about 50 kilometres (31 miles) from the copper and cobalt mine in the southeast of the country.The truck was owned by a logistics company contracted by the mine, Glencore said, without...Read More

Gold prices dropped back from a 10-month high on Thursday, suffering from their largest one-day decline since August. Analysts attributed the steep loss to minutes from the Fed's January meeting released a day earlier, which sounded less dovish than investors had expected, as well as a stronger dollar and rising bond yields. Prices for the metal also sank on the back of technical trading pressure....Read More

Copper's three-month price on the London Metal Exchange continued its strong performance at the close of trading on Friday February 22, reaching a seven-month high, while low LME stocks and a fresh cancelation of more than 37,000 tonnes in the morning supported the price.Trading was at its highest level since July 2018, and only a month earlier copper's three-month price had reached levels in exce...Read More

An overview of the noble alloys markets and the reasons for any price moves.Read More

Zinc smelters have submitted bids for treatment charges (TCs) of up to $280 per tonne for annual contracts, kicking off concentrate supply negotiations ahead of the International Zinc Association (IZA) conference to be held in Scottsdale, Arizona, February 24-27.TCs are the fees paid to smelters for processing concentrate into refined metal.In January and February meetings with miners, smelte...Read More

The global copper market remained in a deficit of 395,000 tonnes through the first 11 months of 2018, the International Copper Study Group (ICSG) reported on Thursday February 21, although that shortfall tightened from a 545,000-tonne deficit in January-October."World growth was constrained by an unusually high frequency of smelter disruptions and temporary shutdowns for technical upgrades [and] m...Read More

An overview of the battery raw materials markets and their price moves from the past week.Read More

Zinc and lead concentrate treatment charges (TCs) rose in February deals for spot cargoes with liquidity sinking over the Lunar New Year and while market participants became insular ahead of annual contract negotiations.Fastmarkets assessed zinc concentrate TCs at $215-250 per tonne on February 22 from $210-240 per tonne in January, which reflects the gap between the low volumes of trader and smel...Read More

The US copper market saw heavy buying Friday morning amid mounting optimism that the trade dispute between the United States and China will be resolved in the coming months.The copper price for March settlement on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange jumped 4.20 cents to $2.9390 per lb.Progress in US-China trade talks continued to prompt positive market sentiment over the week, w...Read More

Etienne Scemama, regional sales manager at Rio Tinto, has left the company, Fastmarkets understands. Scemama handled the physical trading of aluminium specialty products for the producer. He worked...Read More

Base metals stocks on the Shanghai Futures Exchange were mixed as of Friday February 22, with zinc and copper stocks continuing to increase due to sluggish demand in the domestic Chinese market over the previous week, while aluminium and tin inventories were almost flat, and those of nickel and lead dropped.Deliverable copper stocks at SHFE-approved warehouses had risen by 10,676 tonnes or 5.15% o...Read More

The Gahcho Ku?(C) diamond mine, a joint venture between De Beers Canada and Mountain Province Diamonds is selling an exceptional, 60-carat yellow rough diamond in a sealed bid tender. Reid Mackie, adviser on behalf of Mountain Province, said that this is one of the most exciting stones to have been extracted from the mine since operations commenced at Gahcho Ku?(C). "The stone stuck out like a tr...Read More

Brazil's apparent consumption of steel totaled 1.54 million tonnes in January, down 5.6% from 1.63 million tonnes during the same month in 2018, national steel association Instituto A??o Brasil said on Friday February 22.Performance lagged most in the flat steel market. Flat steel usage reached 905,000 tonnes in the month, as it fell by 8.2% from 986,000 tonnes in January 2018. Long steel consumpt...Read More

Lucara Diamonds’ Karowe mine, in Botswana, achieved a strong operational performance in 2018, meeting or exceeding guidance in all areas, the company said on Thursday.Tonnes mined for the year ended December 31, 2018, reached 18.1-million, in line with guidance of 15.5-million to 18.7-million tonnes.AdvertisementOre and waste mined were 3.1-million tonnes and 15-million tonnes, respectively....Read More

Indian flat steel producers increased domestic hot-rolled coil (HRC) prices by 1,000 rupees ($14) per tonne at the start of this week to factor in the higher prices of the commodity in the international market and rising raw materials costs.The price increase of 1,000 rupees per tonne for sales in the second half of February takes Fastmarkets' domestic HRC price to 40,500-41,000 rupees per to...Read More

LONDON – Wholesale prices for laboratory-grown diamonds have fallen by up to 60% since De Beers began selling synthetic stones for jewellery in September, CEO Bruce Cleaver said on Thursday, adding margins for the sector would continue to fall.De Beers, part of mining group Anglo American, shocked the diamond industry last year when it announced it was reversing a decades-old policy of selli...Read More

CIS steel billet producers reduced offers of April-rolling billet in the week ended Friday February 22 in an attempt to attract customers, following the decline in global scrap prices, particularly in Turkey.Fastmarkets daily index for Northern Europe-origin HMS 1&2 (80:20) was calculated at $304.96 per tonne cfr Turkey on Friday February 22, down from $324.29 on the same day last week.The daily i...Read More