Market participants in the US ferrous supply chain attending aFastmarkets webinar on June 30 expected prices to be largely stable in the coming months, but benchmark indicators continue to track downward as an uneven reopening of the United States economy clouds the outlook. About 62% of respondents to a poll held during the webinar - titled "Sunny days ahead?" - expected hot-rolled coil...Read More

Tata Steel has reached an agreement with trade union FNV Metaal over its Dutch assets, bringing an end to 25 days of industrial action, the company said on Friday July 3.There will be no redundancies at Tata Steel at IJmuiden and the parent company will invest in site's upgrade, FNV said.In addition, an employment pact for the company's Dutch workers has been extended by five years until Octo...Read More

Here are five Fastmarkets stories you might have missed on Wednesday July 8 that are worth another look.The recovery in Chinese steel consumption, especially that for rebar, has been "extraordinary," while the downturn in the automotive sector may not necessarily mean stainless steel demand will decline this year, delegates heard at Fastmarkets' Covid-19 and Asian ferro-alloys markets webinar...Read More

A negative arbitrage between the London Metal Exchange and Shanghai Futures Exchange resulted in lower premiums for all nickel grades in China in the week to Tuesday July 7, while other regional premiums remained unchanged. China trading interest wanes amid long-lasting negative LME/SHFE arbitrage, prompting lower premiumsEuropean spot buying remains lackluster with scant deals reported in already...Read More

Hot-rolled coil prices in the United States increased slightly on Wednesday July 8 while remaining under $24 per hundredweight, with market participants split on demand outlook due to continued concerns about the Covid-19 pandemic.Fastmarkets' daily steel hot-rolled coil index, fob mill US was calculated at $23.53 per cwt ($470.60 per ton) on Wednesday July 8, a 0.7% increase from $23.36 per cwt o...Read More

Market participants in the US ferrous supply chain attending aFastmarkets webinar on June 30 expected prices to be largely stable in the coming months, but benchmark indicators continue to track downward as an uneven reopening of the United States economy clouds the outlook. About 62% of respondents to a poll held during the webinar - titled "Sunny days ahead?" - expected hot-rolled coil...Read More

Here are five Fastmarkets stories you might have missed on Wednesday July 8 that are worth another look.The recovery in Chinese steel consumption, especially that for rebar, has been "extraordinary," while the downturn in the automotive sector may not necessarily mean stainless steel demand will decline this year, delegates heard at Fastmarkets' Covid-19 and Asian ferro-alloys markets webinar...Read More

The London Metal Exchange is looking for ways to boost its options market, which has been struggling for some years to replicate the growth seen in the same sector among its peers.The exchange has launched a consultation, scheduled to end on July 29, on developing electronic options via a new trading platform while retaining its current inter-office options trading structure.Items up for discussio...Read More

The mining industry does a huge amount of good for local communities, to say nothing of its essential contribution to society through the materials it produces. Unfortunately, it all too often manages to give itself a bad name, worsening negative perceptions of the sector through accidents, spills and a failure to act as a steward of the environments in which it operates. In the past month alone,...Read More

The threat of Section 232 tariffs on aluminium imports from Canada into the United States has, like the great white shark following the Brody family in the universally panned film, 'Jaws: The Revenge,' returned - akin to a truly awful horror movie franchise. And that's how Neil Herrington, senior vice president for the Americas, US Chamber of Commerce, views reports that the US administration is c...Read More

A summary of London Metal Exchange warrant premiums from across the globe for the week to Wednesday July 8.Please click...Read More

The London Metal Exchange three-month aluminium price closed at its highest since March 16 on Wednesday July 8, up 1.8% on the previous day's close at $1,665 per tonne after 20,000 lots changed hands over the course of the trading day. LME aluminium futures were buoyed by a 4,975-tonne outflow of material from LME-approved sheds in Asia and a significant 43,525-tonne fresh cancelation in Port Klan...Read More

The London Metal Exchange will keep its open outcry trading ring in London closed despite the United Kingdom easing its lockdown restrictions, it announced on Wednesday July 8. "Following detailed discussions with our ring-dealing members and User Committee, and having fully assessed the updated UK government guidance that came into effect on 4 July, our position remains not to reopen the ring unt...Read More

The latest forecasts from Fastmarkets' team of analysts are ready to view.Aluminium: Capped by oversupplyA lack of a meaningful supply adjustment to the Covid-19 demand hit is keeping the aluminium physical market oversupplied and weighing on prices, limiting the success of more buoyant macro and technical forces on prices. Our premium forecasts are under review in light of threats from the U...Read More

The latest forecasts from Fastmarkets' team of analysts are ready to view.Aluminium: Poised for a technical breakoutFears over a second wave of Covid-19 continue to grow, forcing prices of aluminium and the other base metals to take a pause. Our base-case scenario is that countries will respond more efficiently to contain the virus spread, so economic activity and metal demand should continue to r...Read More

The latest forecasts from Fastmarkets' team of analysts are ready to view.Aluminium: Demand outlook revisedWe are not surprised to see aluminium prices retreat from last week's high after flagging up in recent reports that they had become overbought. 'Sell-the-rally' traders will be targeting the April high now, down at $1,534 per tonne. This week we have reviewed our aluminium demand forecasts fo...Read More

The latest forecasts from Fastmarkets' team of analysts are ready to view.Price uptrend stumbles, but expected to resumeAs we expected, Chinese export and domestic steel prices moved upward in June, settling within the 2% range of our forecasts. Rebar prices trended downward in the second half of the month while heavy rains and floods in parts of the country meant that some construction sites had...Read More

The latest forecasts from Fastmarkets' team of analysts are ready to view.The latest forecast of global oil country tubular goods (OCTG) consumption paints a stark picture of the slowdown in demand from the energy industry in the wake of the Covid-19 outbreak and subsequent oil and gas retreat.For 2020, total global consumption is expected to amount to 13.2 million tonnes, a decline of nearly 3.5...Read More

The latest forecasts from Fastmarkets' team of analysts are ready to view.Depending on which market one looks at, prices of coated steels have either risen, fallen or remained roughly the same since mid-May. One crucial impact of the Covid-19 pandemic that has swept the world this year is the decoupling it appears to have created between global steel markets.In China, prices of most steel products...Read More

The latest forecasts from Fastmarkets' team of analysts are ready to view.US prices continue to hold Seamless oil country tubular goods (OCTG) and line pipe prices remained unchanged for the third straight month in June, and we expect them to remain stable through the summer before edging higher on the back of a measured rise in drilling rates.The lack of price movement in recent months does not i...Read More