An overview of the battery raw materials markets and their price moves from the past week.Read More
The United States' April ferrous scrap market has come into focus in a thinly traded month, with many scrap dealers refusing to accept unattractive offers in a month plagued by a historically late start and weak demand.Detroit settled with prices retreating by $30 per gross ton on prime grades and $50 per ton on cut grades and shredded scrap, with only one mill in the region buying material.Fastma...Read More
The market for pig iron exports from the south of Brazil went down during the week ended Thursday April 9 on new sales to China.Fastmarkets' weekly price assessment for pig iron, export, fob port of Vitoria/Rio, Brazil was $265 per tonne on Thursday, down from $297-300 per tonne on April 3.One sale...Read More
The pig iron market in the United States was quiet in the week to Thursday April 9 because domestic scrap prices had not been settled and the work week was shorter due to Good Friday.Fastmarkets' price assessment for pig iron, import, cfr Gulf of Mexico, US was $285-290 per tonne on Thursday, down from $290-300 per tonne a week earlier."Trade in the US [pig iron] market will resume...Read More
Seaborne coking coal prices rose slightly on Monday April 13, although no transactions were heard during the day after active trading to end last week, sources said.Fastmarkets indicesPremium hard coking coal, fob DBCT: $133.29 per tonne, up $0.16 per tonnePremium hard coking coal, cfr Jingtang: $139.51 per tonne, up $1.26 per tonneHard coking coal, fob DBCT: $120.01 per tonne, unchangedHard cokin...Read More
The seaborne iron ore market moved up on Monday April 13, with a persistent tightness in the supply of low-alumina and high-grade products from Brazil bolstering prices. Fastmarkets iron ore indices 62% Fe fines, cfr Qingdao: $85.60 per tonne, up $0.83 per tonne. 62% Fe low-alumina fines, cfr Qingdao: $87.26 per tonne, up $1.06 per tonne. 58% Fe fines high-grade premium, cfr Qingdao: $74.62 per to...Read More
The seaborne iron ore pellet market dropped slightly last week, with European and Indian-origin materials being offered into China in what a seller source described as "sort of a price war."Fastmarkets' index for iron ore 65% Fe blast furnace pellet, cfr Qingdao stood at $114.62 per tonne last Thursday April 9, down by $0.21 per tonne from a week earlier. Demand for pellets was heard to be weak in...Read More
U.S. equity index futures were lower this morning. S&P 500 futures were down 12 points in pre-opening trade;Crude oil gained $0.31 to $23.07 after OPEC and its allies agreed to reduce their oil production quotas by 9.7 million barrels from May 1st to June 30th.Starbucks slipped $0.54 to $73.34 after Wedbush lowered its target price from $84 to $71.Carnival dropped $0.35 to $12.07 after Wedbush...Read More
China's ferrous scrap market plummeted over the past three weeks due to destocking pressure on sellers coupled with low procurement rates among mills, which sent prices to their lowest in close to two years.Fastmarkets' price assessment for steel scrap heavy scrap domestic, delivered mill China was 2,200-2,360 yuan ($313-335) per tonne including value-added tax last Friday April 10, down by 210-23...Read More
China's domestic rebar prices kept moving upward on Monday April 13 on strengthening demand from the construction sector. Eastern China (Shanghai): 3,460-3,490 yuan ($491-496) per tonne, up 30 yuan per tonneNorthern China (Beijing): 3,400-3,430 yuan per tonne, up 30 yuan per tonne from 3,370-3,400 yuan per tonne last FridayDemand in both key spot markets was strong during the day, with gains being...Read More
Deliverable base metals stocks in Shanghai Futures Exchange-approved warehouses were down across the board in the week to Friday April 10, with that for copper dropping the most in percentage terms.SHFE copper stocks declined by 4.4% or 14,507 tonnes week on week to total 317,928 tonnes on April 10.The outflow mainly came from the warehouses of Zhongchu Dachang in Shanghai and Zhongchu Wuxi in Jia...Read More
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Chinese minor metal, ore and alloy markets had mixed reactions to news of an extended South African lockdown.South African President Cyril Ramaphosa on Thursday April 9 extended the national lockdown by a further two weeks from the initial 21-day lockdown announced on March 26 to stem the spread of Covid-19, which has caused multiple mines and smelters across the country to shut dow...Read More
China's export price for grade-553 silicon fell to a five-and-a-half-month low on Friday April 10 following the emergence of lower offers from traders amid persistently weak foreign demand.Fastmarkets' weekly price assessment for silicon export 98.5% Si min, fob China was $1,380-1,440 per tonne on April 10, down by $60-90 per tonne or 5.1% from $1,470-1,500 per tonne a week earlier. The latest ass...Read More
An overview of the Chinese minor metals markets and the reasons for their latest price moves.Read More
Management at Alamos Gold's (TSX: AGI; NYSE: AGI) headquarters in Toronto have confirmed that the company's wholly owned Mulatos gold mine in Mexico was robbed last week.A group of five heavily-armed robbers made off with an undisclosed amount of gold in a small aircraft that landed on an airstrip owned by the company near the heap-leach mine in Sonora state."We are fully insured on the stolen dor...Read More
O3 Mining (TSXV: OIII) has released drill results from four zones at its East Cadillac property, 40 km east of Val d'Or, Quebec. The drilling targeted new areas of mineralization within two gold-bearing corridors at the property: the northern and southern corridors, which are splays off of the easternmost section of the regional Cadillac Larder Lake Fault (CLLF).Drill highlights include 7 metres o...Read More
S&P Global Ratings has cut its global GDP growth forecast for 2020 to 0.4%.Earlier this month, it lowered its GDP growth forecast for China to 2.9% from its previous estimate of 5.0% in February, and predicted GDP in the U.S. will fall 1.3% this year and drop 2% in the Eurozone.In the metals and mining space, S&P Market Intelligence believes the pandemic will lead to a 29% drop in exploration budg...Read More
Bank of America Securities estimates global demand for aluminium will fall by 7.2% year-on-year in 2020 while supply will likely increase by 2%.Prices for the metal already have plunged by 19% so far this year, the bank warned, and "the combination of outright production increases and falling consumption is not sustainable in our view."COVID-19 "has severely impacted global activity," BofA Securit...Read More
IsaMill, a fine grinding technology that has made a name for itself on the market over the last 25 years as the world's only horizontal fine-grinding mill, always had advantages. But key design changes have now made it even more competitive.Its original incarnation was engineered 25 years ago in Australia, where a complex orebody required a finer grind than any existing mill could deliver. What be...Read More