The latest forecasts from Fastmarkets' team of analysts is ready to view.With nickel prices down by almost 20% over the space of around ten days during late February and early March, one might have been expecting us to be reporting sharply-lower prices of stainless steel, at least for the most common nickel-containing grades of stainless steel.This is not the case, at least in Europe and the Unite...Read More
First Cobalt has held preliminary discussions with Canadian government officials on the creation of a lithium-ion battery park on the same site as its battery materials hydrometallurgical refinery north of Toronto, the company said.The goal is to attract a precursor manufacturer to the site to recycle black mass from spent lithium-ion batteries, recovering nickel and cobalt in the process, it note...Read More
The European hot-rolled coil market remained quiet on Thursday July 15 on seasonally slow trading, with prices largely unchanged, supported by strong order books at steel mills and long lead times, sources told Fastmarkets.European buyers were still abstaining from making large bookings due to the still-high prices and sufficient stocks at most distributors. Exhausted credit lines were also limiti...Read More
Aluminium producer UC Rusal will pass through some of the Russian government's proposed export duty, scheduled to take effect in August, to its customers rather than absorb the entire tax, a source close to the company has confirmed.Aluminium market participants were bracing for the imposition of export duties on Russian material, after the country's government authorized the taxes on a range of m...Read More
CAUTION: Rough prices surging out of control with some secondary market premiums over 10%. No assurance that polished prices will follow rough price increases. Manufacturing profit margins under pressure as De Beers raises prices 5% at July sight. Rough prices have increased an estimated 20% in 2021 with 1-carat polished only up 11%. Polished trading steady. US and Chinese demand supporting the m...Read More
RAPAPORT... The rough market is buoyant after yet another price increase by De Beers, leaving many in the trade scratching their heads. Goods are selling at strong premiums on the secondary market - double-digit percentages in some categories - as manufacturers continue to boost production after the past year's coronavirus-induced stoppages.De Beers raised prices an estimated average of 5% du...Read More
RAPAPORT... Chow Tai Fook saw sharp growth in Hong Kong and China in the past three months as both markets showed improvements compared with last year's slowdown.Retail sales value across the group jumped 70% year on year for the first fiscal quarter ending June 30, the Hong Kong-based jeweler reported Tuesday. The figure rose 69% in mainland China and 76% in Hong Kong, Macau and other market...Read More
RAPAPORT... A newly discovered pipe at the Ellendale mine may contain "millions" of fancy-yellow and other gem-quality diamonds, according to the company that owns that part of the site.India Bore Diamond Holdings (IBDH) has identified a buried drainage system at the Australian mine that is full of rough diamonds, it said Wednesday. The stones had washed into it when nearby diamond-containing...Read More
PT Freeport has said it will continue with building a new copper smelter in Indonesia on its own, the latest twist in a saga that has run for almost a decade.The company, which is a subsidiary of US mining company Freeport McMoRan, will begin constructing a new smelter able to process 1.7 million tonnes of copper concentrates per year, its spokesperson Riza Pratama told Reuters on July...Read More
RAPAPORT... Alrosa has recommenced production at its Zarnitsa open-pit mine in Yakutia following a 14-month shutdown.The mine reopened on July 1, with ore extraction due to take place this year, Alrosa said Wednesday. However, the move will not affect the company's 2021 production outlook, as processing of diamonds will only begin in2022, noted Sergey Pavlenko, head of the Udachny division, which...Read More
(IDEX Online) - Alrosa has resumed operations at another low-output mine, as the demand for rough recovers.The Zarnitsa open-pit mine (pictured), in Yakutia, Russia, stopped production in May 2020 as the market slumped, but the state-owned miner said it resumed operations on 1 July.Ore from Zarnitsa - one of the first primary diamond deposits discovered in the then-USSR - will not be process...Read More
Import activity for copper cathodes into China rose on Thursday July 15, supported by improved arbitrage opportunity between London and Shanghai futures markets.The loss for importing the red metal into the country has been narrowing in the week to July 15. This, together with a rise of spot premiums in China's domestic copper market, buoyed buyers' profits. Fastmarkets' calculated the copper...Read More
(IDEX Online) - The government of Zimbabwe admits it has lost 350,000 carats of rough diamonds, with an estimated value of $140m. They were stored at repositories belonging to Minerals Marketing Corporation of Zimbabwe (MMCZ) and Zimbabwe Consolidated Diamond Company (ZCDC). Both are wholly owned by the government. In a newly-released report, the country's Auditor-General Mildred Chiri...Read More
Packaging company Ball Corporation is planning to build new plants in western Russia and in the East Midlands region of the UK, adding billions more cans per year to existing capacity from 2023, the company has said.Ball is based in the US state of Colorado. It said that increasing consumer demand for more sustainable purchasing options, and the adoption of cans by a growing number of new brands a...Read More
Chinalco Shanxi New Material Co suspended production on an alumina line at its refinery in Shanxi province last weekend, removing 500,000 tonnes per year from its annual output, sources told Fastmarkets on Thursday July 15.The subsidiary of the state-owned Aluminum Corporation of China (Chinalco), has an annual capacity of 2.5 million tpy - although that has been reduced to 1.7 million tpy since t...Read More
(IDEX Online) - Signet Jewelers rose up the rankings in the National Retail Federation (NRF) new list of Top 100 Retailers in the US - from 98th place to 78th.But its total retail sales plunged by almost a quarter from $6.05bn in 2019, to $4.65m in 2020 according to the NRF data, provided by Kantar data analytics. Walmart and Amazon.com, placed first and second respectively in both 2020...Read More
Hot-rolled coil prices in the United States remained near $91 per hundredweight ($1,820 per short ton) on Thursday July 15, one day after exceeding that threshold for the first time.Fastmarkets' daily steel hot-rolled coil index, fob mill US was calculated at $90.93 per cwt ($1,818.60 per ton) on July 15, down by 0.44% from $91.33 per cwt on Wednesday July 14 but up by 1.63% from $89.47 per cwt on...Read More
Steel reinforcing bar prices in the United States increased on Wednesday July 14 for the first time since June 16. Fastmarkets' assessment for steel rebar, fob mill US was $49 per hundredweight ($980 per short ton) on Wednesday, up 2.08% from $48 per cwt the previous week and up 70.44% from $28.75 per cwt at the same time last year.US marketNucor Corp and Mid-Continent Steel and Wire each increase...Read More
A summary of operational results for Russia's largest steelmaker, Novolipetsk Steel (NLMK), for January-June 2021 compared with the same period of last yearIn brief NLMK group sales of 8.24 million tonnes were down by 7% year on year from 8.86 million tonnes. Sales in its home markets, which include Russia, the US, Belgium, Italy and France, increased by 3% to 5.5 million tonnes from 5.36 million...Read More
Demand for steel rebar and billet in Egypt was subdued in the week to Thursday July 15 because buyers preferred to wait until after the upcoming Eid al-Adha holiday before conducting new business, sources told Fastmarkets.Eid al-Adha is expected to take place next week and market participants did not want to make any bookings before the four-and-a-half-day religious holiday.At the same time, uncer...Read More