If global financial markets had been operating under a pervading sense of uncertainty due to the impact of the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV), they now appear to be veering on panic.Oil prices have suffered their biggest one-day collapse since the 1991 Gulf War following Saudi Arabia's declaration of a price war on Russia through a shock move to hike oil production. S&P Dow Jones Indices was forced...Read More
Bob Moriarty ArchivesMar 9, 2020In military aviation pilots are taught about an important concept called being on theBack Side of the Power Curve.For every aircraft and altitude there is a speed and power curve. Until the aircraft gets too slow things work just fine. A lot like the Fed. But when the aircraft flies too slow and drag gets too high, the addition of more power makes the situation wors...Read More
Treatment charges (TCs) for spot lead concentrates have continued to rise, with smelters cherry-picking deals with terms as high as $200 per tonne.Fastmarkets assessed the lead spot concentrate TC, high silver, cif China, at $180-200 per tonne on Friday February 28, up $30 from $150-170 per tonne the previous month. The corresponding assessment for lead spot concentrate TC, low silver, cif China,...Read More
The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development said yesterday it expected the COVID-19 outbreak's negative impact on global foreign direct investment flows to be between -5% to -15% this year.Meanwhile equities in the Middle East plunged on Sunday as Saudi Arabia slashed the price of its crude after producers failed to agree on supply cuts, Bloomberg reported.Diversified miner and oil and...Read More
New York-based Jefferies, which also highlighted MMG's operational risks in a weekend note on the 75%-China Minmetals Corp owned company, said its high level of exposure to a weaker copper price was one concern, but probably not as big a problem as its "relatively high operating risk [Las Bambas and Kinsevere] and a levered balance sheet"."Net debt was reduced by $226 million to $7.47 billion at t...Read More
Chinese portside prices of both high- and low-grade manganese ore fell for the fourth straight week on Friday March 6, but the pace of the downtrend slowed after some traders resisted slashing offer prices further. Fastmarkets' manganese ore port index, base 37% Mn, range 35-39%, fot Tianjin, China was 33.70 yuan ($4.86) per dry metric tonne unit (dmtu) (equivalent to $4.10 per dmtu, excludin...Read More
Under the proposed three-year mining services contract, Barminco says it will bring industry-leading technology and productivity to Hemlo in support of Barrick's goal to modernise and improve the performance of the mine and establish it as a tier two asset within its group.Barminco's scope of work includes undertaking mine development, production and haulage, using Barrick's mining equipment.The c...Read More
Vancouver, BC - A2Z Technologies Canada Corp. ("A2Z" or the "Company") (TSXV: AZ) announced today that it has received a notice from the Israel Police notifying them that they have won a new four-year contract.Bentsur Joseph, Chairman and CEO of A2Z stated, "We won a similar contract four years ago, which recently completed. The Israel Police awarded A2Z a new four-year term contract and expanded...Read More
Montr?(C)al, QC - Siyata Mobile Inc. (TSX-V:SIM | OTCQX: SYATF) (the "Company" or "Siyata") is pleased to announce it has launched the Company's flagship Push-to-Talk LTE Uniden UV350 in-vehicle cellular IoT device with Verizon.The UV350 provides its enterprise customers with the first-ever dedicated in-vehicle Push-to-Talk ("PTT") cellular solution built for the specific requirements of com...Read More
Norsk Hydro has closed one of the four production lines at its Albras aluminium smelter joint venture in Brazil after a fire in an electrical transformer on Friday March 6.The smelter, owned 51% by Norsk Hydro and 49% by Nippon Amazon Aluminium Co, has an annual production capacity of 460,000 tonnes. The fire is a further blow to the smelter,...Read More
Here are five Fastmarkets stories you might have missed on Monday March 9 that are worth another look.Market sources have been puzzled by the gradual upward trend in China's steel prices after the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) broke out in a big way after the Lunar New Year holiday.Soci?(C)t?(C) le Nickel (SLN) resumed operations and ore shipments at its Thio mine in New Caledonia on March 9, a sp...Read More
Steve St. Angelo, SRSrocco Report (MARCH 8, 2020 Late PM US EST)It begins... the world is finally waking up to the massive economic and financial threat of this global contagion. As reported by Zerohedge, the Middle East markets opened today to a bloodbath as many of the region's stock indexes fell more than 5%, with Kuwait suspending trading after it's market fell 10%. According to the ar...Read More
RambusI promised you on Friday that I would take an in-depth look at the energy complex in the Weekend Report. If there is one sector to define the possible deflationary event we've been discussing for the last several months or so oil is probably the most important commodity of all. Eventually we'll know the cause in no uncertain terms, but the charts have been suggesting for a long time now th...Read More
Key data from the March 9 pricing session in LondonKey driversThe price for standard-grade cobalt increases on the top end of the range; sellers hold firm with offers and are in little rush to drop them for low-volume inquiries. The alloy-grade price holds firm, with several sellers citing market tightness on good demand being reported in the aerospace, medical implant and other downstream ma...Read More
Turkish steel mills remained out of the deep-sea scrap markets at the start of the week, but expect to resume purchases soon, market sources said on Monday March 9.There have been no new bookings so far in March. The last cargo was sold on February 24, which put the price of Baltic Sea- and United States-origin HMS 1&2 (80:20) at around $280 per tonne cfr.Suppliers, especially those in the US, hel...Read More
Its announcement comes as South African miners said they could mobilise "large-scale medical facilities" if needed, Western Australian producers agreed to form a working group to address key coronavirus concerns, and attendance last week at PDAC 2020, the world's biggest annual exploration and mining convention, was lower as contagion fears kept some away.Canada-based Barrick said it had not yet d...Read More
Auto bundle scrap prices in the Turkish domestic market dropped over the past week on the strength on the local currency against the US dollar, while ship scrap prices were stable, sources said on Monday March 9.The Turkish lira has regained some ground against the US dollar, following the news that Turkey and Russia had agreed a ceasefire in Idlib, Syria, which took effect on Thursday March 5, ac...Read More
The Chinese government has announced a fourth quota for copper scrap imports, which importers must apply for to bring scrap material into China.A total of 3,520 tonnes of copper scrap will be allowed to enter into China under the latest quota, according to a release on Saturday March 7 from the China Solid Waste & Chemicals Management Bureau, which is part of the Ministry of Ecology and Environmen...Read More
If global financial markets had been operating under a pervading sense of uncertainty due to the impact of the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV), they now appear to be veering on panic.Oil prices have suffered their biggest one-day collapse since the 1991 Gulf War following Saudi Arabia's declaration of a price war on Russia through a shock move to hike oil production. S&P Dow Jones Indices was forced...Read More
Key data from the March 9 pricing session in LondonKey driversThe price for standard-grade cobalt increases on the top end of the range; sellers hold firm with offers and are in little rush to drop them for low-volume inquiries. The alloy-grade price holds firm, with several sellers citing market tightness on good demand being reported in the aerospace, medical implant and other downstream ma...Read More