Here are five Fastmarkets stories you might have missed on Monday January 11 that are worth another look.Brazilian flat steel producers have applied price increases of around 15% on sales to distributors, motivated by high raw materials costs and sustained higher steel prices globally.Read More

The US ferrous scrap market has mostly settled for January, with market participants hinting that while tight No1 busheling may see continued upside in February, shredded scrap has become plentiful and has likely peaked.Detroit kicked off trading on Wednesday January 6, while activity in the Chicago market dragged into Monday January 11.Fastmarkets' assessments of the consumer buying prices f...Read More

Prices for domestic steel hot-rolled coil increased slightly in Northern Europe in the week to Friday January 8, with ArcelorMittal pushing its offer prices further upward.Market sources expected that domestic prices would continue to rise through January with buyers facing continuing supply shortages.Fastmarkets calculated its daily steel hot-rolled coil index, domestic, exw Northern Europe, at ?...Read More

Brazilian flat steel producers have applied price increases of around 15% on sales to distributors, motivated by high raw materials costs and sustained higher steel prices globally. The increase is in addition to the 10% rise in prices applied in December by most steelmakers.Fastmarkets' monthly price assessment for steel hot-rolled coil, domestic, monthly, exw Brazil was 5,080-5,10...Read More

Here are five Fastmarkets stories you might have missed on Monday January 11 that are worth another look.Brazilian flat steel producers have applied price increases of around 15% on sales to distributors, motivated by high raw materials costs and sustained higher steel prices globally.Read More

China's regulatory reboot to again become a major steel scrap importer is likely to cause supply problems for other consumers of Japanese material, market participants have told Fastmarkets.The first deals signed by Chinese companies after rules changed on December 31 to officially allow the restart of scrap imports to China have all been for vessels of Japanese material.If this continues, China's...Read More

Waiting times for aluminium at Istim warehouses in Port Klang, Malaysia, fell to just 20 days at the end of December, according to the London Metal Exchange's latest queue report.This is down from 30 days at the end of November and 71 days at the end of October.There was a queue for aluminium at Istim warehouses in Port Klang every month in 2020.The queues originally built up due a series of...Read More

The London Metal Exchange's average daily volume (ADV) of trades declined across all base metals in December 2020 despite price rallies, according to latest LME data. Copper's ADV had the smallest decline but was still down 11.9% year on year at 119,141 lots. This came in spite of the average official three-month copper price increasing by 9.8% in December month on month to an average of $7,7...Read More

The seaborne hard coking coal cfr price rose by $1 per tonne to $196.03 per tonne cfr China on Monday January 11 while coke producers in parts of China proposed a 13th round of domestic price increases of around 100 yuan ($15) per tonne - effective from 12am China time on January 13, Fastmarkets understands.Fastmarkets indicesPremium hard coking coal, fob DBCT: $103.93 per tonne, unchangedPremium...Read More

Is inflation running hot, and will silver be able to reclaim $25?(by Half Dollar) There is a lot of inflation data coming out this week, and we also get the December Retail Sales Report on Friday.Some of the reports in the week ahead include, in chronological order of release:Consumer Price Index (Inflation)Jobless Claims*Producer Price Index (Inflation)December Retail SalesIndustrial Production (...Read More

RAPAPORT... Lucapa Diamond Company has sold $5.6 million worth of rough to manufacturer Safdico via a partnership the two companies formed last year.The Graff subsidiary bought 4,676 carats of diamonds from the Mothae deposit in Lesotho at Lucapa's first sale of goods from the site this year, the miner reported Monday. The sale achieved an average price of $1,198 per carat, the highest Lucapa has...Read More

RAPAPORT... Sales at Hong Kong-based jeweler Chow Tai Fook grew 17.5% year on year in the last three months of 2020 as a recovery in mainland China outweighed weakness in its home territory."In light of the easing Covid-19 situation in mainland China, business there sustained an encouraging improvement," the company said in a trading update on Monday. "Challenging macros, the pandemic develop...Read More

RAPAPORT... Gem Diamonds received a New Year's surprise, retrieving a 146.9-carat rough diamond from its Let??eng mine in Lesotho.The miner found the high-quality, type II diamond on January 7, it said last week. The stone is the first 100-carat-plus diamond the company has found this year. The discovery also comes a month earlier than 2020's first recovery of a stone in that size category, which...Read More

Glencore has concluded discussions with the Zambian government about the sale of a majority stake in the Mopani copper mine, state media reported on Friday January 8.An agreement will be signed this week, according to a report by the Zambian National Broadcasting Corp, citing President Edgar Lungu."Glencore confirms that it is in final-stage negotiations relating to a possible sale of Carlisa's 90...Read More

Brazilian domestic rebar prices reached a new record high once again in early January, after steelmakers increased their offers by 12-12.5%, market participants told Fastmarkets.Sources reported persistent low availability from mills, long lead times and no room for discounts. Most suppliers, they said, were offering and selling at similar, higher prices.Fastmarkets' price assessment for ...Read More

(IDEX Online) - Tech firm Sarine says its digital tender solutions, already adopted by Alrosa and Lucara, are now being used by Stargems as well.The coronavirus pandemic has proved to be a catalyst to rough sellers trading with remote buyers.Israel-based Sarine says Stargems is now using its systems to map external internal features and help determine the true value of the polished diamonds that c...Read More

(IDEX Online) - Lucapa's mine at Mothae, in Lesotho, achieved its highest ever per-carat price in a sale earlier this month.The Australian miner sold a parcel of 4,676 carats of rough diamonds for a total of $5.6m, averaging $1,198 per carat.The sale included a Type IIa 101-carat D-color diamond announced last month and a number of other specials over 10.8 carats.Lucapa Diamond Company Limite...Read More

(IDEX Online) - India's only industrial diamond has resumed operations, days after work was halted because of environmental concerns.Mining at the Majhgawan mine (pictured), near the town of Panna, in Madhya Pradesh, has been stopped several times over the last 50 years because of concerns by the National Wildlife Board.The mine, estimated to have reserves of 34m carats, is close to the Panna...Read More

Canada Nickel Co has signed a non-binding Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Glencore Canada to examine the potential treatment and processing of future nickel and cobalt production from Glencore's Kidd concentrator and metallurgical site in Timmins, Ontario.Canada Nickel, which is developing nickel-cobalt projects to deliver metals for the electric vehicles and stainless steel markets, comple...Read More

Copper and nickel's forward prices shed more than 3% on Monday January 11, in a second day of declines in the base metals complex on the London Metal Exchange, following a sharp increase in the United States dollar index and concerns over a resurgence of Covid-19 cases in China. Copper's three-month price closed at $7,864 per tonne at 5pm, a 3.3% decrease from Friday's closing price of $8,131 per...Read More