Bangladesh is one of the world's fastest-growing import markets for steel scrap. The country's rapid industrialization in recent years and its lack of natural steelmaking raw material resources mean that scrap imports - in addition to domestic material - are of high importance to the country's steelmakers.But why has 2020 been a particularly important year for the Bangladesh market? And how is Ban...Read More

A summary of Belgian battery materials company Umicore's results for the first six months of 2020, as stated in its half-year report published on Friday July 31.In brief Revenues from the Energy & Surface Technologies division were down by 8% year-on-year in the first half of 2020, to ?,?557 million ($656 million), due to the effect of the Covid-19 pandemic on sales of electric vehicles (EVs). Ear...Read More

A brief fire outbreak at one of Russian multi-metal miner Nornickel's Arctic power plants had led to the death of one worker, the company said on Monday August 3. Fastmarkets understands that the fire, caused by a short circuit, was confined to six square meters and was extinguished quickly, having no material impact on production at the plant. The fire is the latest in a line of incidents at the...Read More

The metals and equity indices were mixed this morning, Monday August 3, with numerous crosscurrents affecting the markets.Data this morning showed China's Caixin manufacturing purchasing managers' index (PMI) climbed to 52.8 in July from 51.2 a month earlier, while Japan's manufacturing PMI rebounded to 45.2 from 42.6 over the same comparison. But the continuing spread of the Covid-19 in the world...Read More

There hasn't been this much excitement surrounding gold in a decade. Surging demand, record-breaking prices, and safe-haven appeal have put the yellow metal on the front page of every financial media news outlet over the past several weeks.Major institutions like Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, and Citigroup are all predicting gold prices well over $2,000 an ounce. And there are forecasts from ind...Read More

A summary of Belgian battery materials company Umicore's results for the first six months of 2020, as stated in its half-year report published on Friday July 31.In brief Revenues from the Energy & Surface Technologies division were down by 8% year-on-year in the first half of 2020, to ?,?557 million ($656 million), due to the effect of the Covid-19 pandemic on sales of electric vehicles (EVs). Ear...Read More

A summary of operational results for the second quarter of 2020 from Australian lithium-spodumene producer Altura, published on Friday July 31.In brief The company achieved production of 46,316 wet metric tonnes (wmt) of lithium concentrate for the April-June quarter, up by around 10% from the January-March quarter, it said. Production came to 181,264 wmt of...Read More

The cobalt alloy grade, in-whs Rotterdam trade log, including business, bids and offers reported to Fastmarkets.Fastmarkets publishes trades logs for its key price assessments and indices to bring more transparency into the markets it covers and the pricing process it applies. Fastmarkets assessed...Read More

Here are five Fastmarkets stories you might have missed on Monday August 3 that are worth another look.The year 2020 has been the ultimate stress test for commodity market participants and will stay challenging amid significantly impaired consumer demand trends due to the Covid-19 pandemic, according to the chief executive officer of Concord Resources. Mark Hansen said the economy is operatin...Read More

A look at hot-rolled coil prices around the globe.Blip or paradigm shift? Prices for hot-rolled coil in the United States last month fell below those in China for the first time since at least 2013. The reversal of normal trends - Chinese prices are typically well below US levels - resulted from US domestic tags plummeting in July while Chinese prices recorded a third consecutive month o...Read More

Prices for carbon steel plate in the United States have continued to hold steady after neither producers nor distributors reported any impetus to offer cheaper prices or to book bigger tonnages.Buyers saw no urgency to book large inventory buys from the mills at the moment, because there is plenty of material on the ground at various service centers that can sell to each other at competitive price...Read More

Here are five Fastmarkets stories you might have missed on Monday August 3 that are worth another look.The year 2020 has been the ultimate stress test for commodity market participants and will stay challenging amid significantly impaired consumer demand trends due to the Covid-19 pandemic, according to the chief executive officer of Concord Resources. Mark Hansen said the economy is operatin...Read More

Ferrous scrap sellers in Brazil were expecting to raise their prices in new negotiations with steelmakers, with domestic consumption starting to recover and with increases seen in international prices for scrap and local prices for steel rebar, according to national ferrous scrap association Inesfa.After a lackluster first half of the year in terms of scrap demand, which led in turn to higher expo...Read More

Prices for domestic and imported merchant bar quality (MBQ) steel in the United States were again flat in July while demand was generally stable and modest gains in sales volumes were seen in some markets. Fastmarkets' monthly price assessment for steel bar 2 x 2 x 1/4 -inch angle merchant products, fob mill US was $33.80 per hundredweight ($676 per short ton) on Friday July 31, unchanged since...Read More

Newrange Gold reported first results from the drill program at its Pamlico Gold project in Mineral County, Nevada. In a news release, Vancouver-based precious metals exploration and development company Newrange Gold Corp. (NRG:TSX.V; NRGOF:OTC) announced "the first results from the ongoing reverse circulation (RC) drilling program at the Pamlico Gold project in Nevada."The firm noted that 25 hole...Read More

The mineralization at Aurania Resources' flagship project is 'resolving into specific targets.' Aurania Resources Ltd. (ARU:TSX.V; AUIAF:OTCQB) announced in a news release it confirmed high-grade copper-silver in the Tsenken B target area of its flagship Ecuadorian Lost Cities-Cutucu project."We are very encouraged to see the copper-silver in the Tsenken area resolving into specific targets that...Read More

Technical analyst Clive Maund charts warning signs of a Fed-driven stock market downturn. There is a now widespread, universally held belief, especially among "dumb money" market participants, that the markets cannot drop because the Fed is going to keep creating money in ever greater quantities to throw at them, pumping them higher and higher. This erroneous belief appears to be based on an assu...Read More

The Critical Investor takes an in-depth look at Treasury Metals and its new acquisition in Ontario. Treasury Metals Inc. (TML:TSX: TSRMF:OTCBB) recently surprised the markets with the raising of C$11.5 million in an oversubscribed financing, after announcing the pretty interesting all-equity acquisition, worth C$44 million in shares at the time of the news release, of the neighboring Goldlund ope...Read More

Turkish steel mills made no moves in the deep-sea scrap markets on Monday August 3 due to the Eid al-Adha religious holiday in the country.Turkey has been out of the market for the eid since Thursday of last week, when the latest known purchases were heard on the market. The holiday will...Read More

Bangladesh is one of the world's fastest-growing import markets for steel scrap. The country's rapid industrialization in recent years and its lack of natural steelmaking raw material resources mean that scrap imports - in addition to domestic material - are of high importance to the country's steelmakers.But why has 2020 been a particularly important year for the Bangladesh market? And how is Ban...Read More