Global scrap prices pushed upward during the working week from Monday January 28 to Friday February 1, driven by heightened demand due to restocking activity from steel mills worldwide. Steelmakers in Turkey secured at least 17 ferrous scrap cargoes over the past week, pushing Turkish scrap import prices and US ferrous scrap export prices higher during that period. Asian and Indian import pri...Read More
Nemaska Lithium Project (Mine and Hydromet Plant)Nemaska Lithium Inc. [NMX-TSX; NMKEF-OTCQX; NOT-Frankfurt] said Friday February 1 that it plans to resume construction at the Whabouchi lithium mine site in Quebec on February 5, 2019.The company said construction activities were put on hold on the morning of January 31, 2019, following a fire in the cafeteria of the Nemiscau work camp. The facility...Read More
Light iron steel scrap prices in the United Kingdom increased for the second consecutive week on tighter availability because collection rates have dropped off amid freezing temperatures in the week to Friday February 1.The move to higher prices is only the second increase since the start of November 2018, and puts the market at a level last seen on December 14. Major shredders need a high, steady...Read More
Teck's Fort Hills oil sands project in Alberta. Source: Teck Resources Ltd.Teck Resources Ltd. [TECK.B-TSX; TECK-NYSE] issued a profit warning Friday saying it expects to report fourth quarter earnings and EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization) to be well below consensus estimates.Analyst said many of the issues raised appear to be associated with isolated incidents...Read More
Alloy steel scrap prices in Europe increased in the week ended Friday February 1 because of higher costs for nickel and molybdenum.The largest gains were seen in the price of European 18/8 scrap solids imports, which moved up by ?,?20-40 per tonne to ?,?940-980 ($1,079-1,125) per tonne cif on Friday.The UK domestic price for 18/8 solids increased more modestly, with traders complaining that mills...Read More
The grinding circuit at the Kamoto concentrator. Source: Katanga Mining Ltd.Cobalt sales by Glencore AG's Katanga Mining Ltd. [KAT-TSX] unit are facing further delays after the Democratic Republic of Congo requested a suspension of Katanga's KCC ion-exchange project. The project is being developed to remove uranium from cobalt.Katanga Mining's Kamoto Copper Co. unit received a letter on January 30...Read More
[Editor’s note: This story was previously published in November 2018. It has since been updated and republished.]Penny stocks are often dangerous for individual investors. Generally described as stocks with a price under $5, the group usually consists of quite a few fallen angels and growth stocks that haven’t reached, and may never reach, their potential.But there are diamonds in the...Read More
The price of copper on the Comex exchange in the United States edged lower in the final session of trading on Friday February 1, with the market awaiting further news on US-China trade talks.The copper price for March settlement on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange dipped by 0.20 cents to $2.7825 per lb.Price action in the red metal has been positive throughout the week, on lo...Read More
Further weakness in China's Caixin manufacturing purchasing managers' index (PMI), that fell to 48.3 in January from 49.7 in the prior month, was enough to dent confidence in the base metals market this morning, Friday February 1, with prices for the most part weaker as a result. Three-month base metals prices on the London Metal Exchange were down by an average of 0.3% this morning, with aluminiu...Read More
An overview of the battery raw materials markets and their price moves from the past week.Read More
China's domestic battery-grade lithium-carbonate spot price remained stable this week, while the transportation of lithium compounds stopped ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday (February 4-10).Battery-grade lithium carbonate prices stable ahead of the holiday. Lithium hydroxide prices unchanged on thin trading activity. Seaborne Asian cif China, Japan & Korean prices remain unchanged.&nb...Read More
This time last year, cobalt was the hottest metal on the planet.It was everywhere. You couldn't go a day without reading about cobalt in the financial news.Now?Nothing. You barely hear about it, if ever.What happened?Well, much of the financial chatter centered on cobalt prices. Back in March 2018, the price of cobalt reached an all-time high of $95,000 per metric tonne. Prices had increased nearl...Read More
Golden Ridge Resources Ltd. (TSX-V: GLDN) owns a 100% interest in the 1,700-hectare Hank copper-gold-silver-lead-zinc property located in the Golden Triangle district, approximately 140 kilometres north of Stewart, British Columbia. At the 2019 Vancouver Resource Investment Conference, we learned from Michael Blady, President-CEO of Golden Ridge Resources that in 2018 they drilled just under 7000...Read More
Steel coil prices in Turkey increased again this week because of the high cost of scrap alongside other global price increases, with more increases expected, sources told Fastmarkets on Friday February 1.Hot-rolled coil (HRC) stocks are low in the country because buying was weak for a long time when prices were falling.Fastmarkets' daily index for Northern Europe-origin HMS 1&2 (80:20) scrap - a r...Read More
In my Thursday Howe Street interview with Jim Goddard, I recap our latest US and Canadian market comments. For regular readers of those reports, the interview covered familiar territory. We also dug into the question of the marijuana legalization roll-out which covered a bit of new ground (click here to listen to the interview).The interview starts off with a challenge for listeners as we jump ri...Read More
Indian mills are likely to increase their domestic prices for hot-rolled coil (HRC) in February sales by about 1,000 rupees ($14) per tonne because of rising international HRC prices, particularly in China, Fastmarkets heard on Friday February 1.Officials from at least two mills confirmed the likelihood of a price rise. Indian mills were likely to issue new price lists next week, the officials sai...Read More
Coated steel prices in Turkey increased in the week ended Friday February 1, with some producers closing their sales books because they were short of the hot-rolled coil (HRC) base material.The producers had low stocks of HRC, and they wanted to wait and see how much the price of this commodity will increase before announcing new prices for coated coil, sources told Fastmarkets.Fastmarkets' weekly...Read More
The growth in apparent steel consumption in the EU will slow to only 0.5% in 2019, followed by a 1.2% rise in 2020, European steel association Eurofer said on Thursday January 31.Europe's apparent steel consumption was forecast to reach 164 million tonnes in 2019 and 166 million tonnes in 2020.These numbers are "less than one-third of the compound annual growth rate of apparent steel consumption o...Read More
The Friday Market Minute Global stocks mixed as investors weigh progress in U.S.-China trade talks over slowing growth signals in the world's second largest economy.Asia stocks hold four month highs despite the weakest reading for China business and manufacturing activity in three years as the U.S. hails "substantial" progress in talks with Beijing.European stocks hit a two-month high, but...Read More
The levels of the quotas set as definitive measures by the European Commission (EC) will not stop the rise in the region's import volumes, European steel association Eurofer said on Friday February 1.The EC will impose definitive safeguard measures from February 2 on a list of imported steel products, in the form of tariff rates and a range of quotas that are partly annual and country-specific and...Read More