The latest forecasts from Fastmarkets' team of analysts are ready to view.Aluminium: OversoldAluminium has been the hardest hit base metal over the past week, after relentless selling pressure took it to fresh multiyear lows while its LME peers generally consolidate or try to rebound. Aluminium is seeing far less in the way of supply restraint or disruptions than the other metals. But this market...Read More

The latest forecast from Fastmarkets' team of analysts is ready to view.Aluminium: Downside momentum maintainedThe aluminium price has continued to decline, with LME cash even falling below the $1,500 per tonne mark at the start of this week. Downside pressure and momentum remains in the short term while ex-China demand plummets amid auto production line closures and while smelters resist capacity...Read More

The new issue of Aluminium Market Tracker is now online at metalbulletinresearch.com.In this edition, Fastmarkets' research team delivers key insights and forecasts into aluminium markets around the world.Aluminium price down 2.3% week-on-week amid stock market sell-offGlobal markets remain rattled by the spread of the novel coronavirus (2019-nCOV) across Europe and the United States. Panic-sellin...Read More

Copper has attempted to rebound since early September following a marked sell-off in the summer months where macro and fundamental forces have been prevalent.On the macro front, copper has benefited from a slight easing in US-China trade tensions and more monetary policy easing across the globe - including China, where copper consumption is the most exposed - that has shored up investor sentiment....Read More

The latest forecasts from Fastmarkets' team of analysts are ready to view.Despite these unprecedented times, US sheet prices moved in line with our expectations over the past month. While we maintain our view on the direction of pricing during 2020 and the length of the pricing downturn, as the Covid-19 crisis deepens we have increased the magnitude of the price declines through the second quarter...Read More

The latest forecasts from Fastmarkets' team of analysts are ready to view.As oil price stumbles, outlook for welded markets weakensIn February, oil prices, already hit by the economic slowdown in Asia, turned lower on the failure of OPEC+ to reach an agreement on production cuts. This was enough to shake oil markets, but the collapse of global demand due to the pandemic has driven Brent below $30/...Read More

The new issue of the Seamless OCTG & Linepipe Market Tracker is now online at metalbulletinresearch.com.In this edition, Fastmarkets' research team delivers analysis of seamless OCTG and linepipe across international markets:Covid-19 underscores pipe outlookUnsurprisingly, the concern in the seamless pipe markets across the regions is the effect of the spread of Covid-19 on public health and econo...Read More

The new issue of the Steel Market Tracker is now online at metalbulletinresearch.com.In this edition, Fastmarkets' research team delivers key insights and forecasts into the long and flat products markets.This week's risks to our latest flat-rolled forecasts:The Chinese government is stepping up help to the economy, increasing banks' liquidity. But the spread of the coronavirus worldwide is likely...Read More

The latest forecasts from Fastmarkets' team of analysts are ready to view.This month's key ferro-alloy forecast highlights:While the ferro-alloy industry's initial response to the Covid-19 outbreak was marked by rising prices primarily in response to supply-side concerns, focus has now shifted somewhat. As Chinese activity slowly returns to more normal levels, for alloys with a strong Chinese prod...Read More

The latest forecasts from Fastmarkets' team of analysts are ready to view.This week Fastmarkets' analysts and price reporters shared their views and recent findings in a webinar revealing some distinct fundamental tensions for steel, refining alloys and, of course, steelmaking raw materials such as iron ore.While the outlook for chrome and manganese ores and alloys is balanced, as far as market pa...Read More

The latest forecasts from Fastmarkets' team of analysts are ready to view.A 6% decline in the daily average 62% Fe iron ore fines benchmark last week contributed to the lowest quarterly price rise for the first quarter in five years, in spite of clear evidence of supply-side constraints. Although there were clear demand-related obstacles to iron ore suppliers raking in more typical, seasonal price...Read More

The latest forecasts from Fastmarkets' team of analysts are ready to view.Coronavirus continues to shape scrap markets but tighter supply may partly offset lower demandWe have downwardly revised our ferrous scrap price forecasts for the following few months and, as a result, for the whole year of 2020, with the Covid-19 outbreak outside China stalling the markets. The Fastmarkets' daily benchmark...Read More

The latest forecasts from Fastmarkets' team of analysts is ready to view.Although China is slowly returning to pre-outbreak activity, the same cannot be said for the rest of the world, which is grappling with the Covid-19 outbreak, with a fifth of the global population and counting under lockdown. Average blast furnace activity in China is recovering but iron ore demand from outside China is expec...Read More

The latest forecasts from Fastmarkets' team of analysts are ready to view.Having first hit Asia during early 2020, the Covid-19 viral outbreak is now having an even bigger impact on European countries and the US. Widespread lockdown measures have been put in place on people and industry, and economic activity has slowed markedly.For now, stainless steel markets in Europe and the US are yet to show...Read More

The latest forecasts from Fastmarkets' team of analysts are ready to view.Despite these unprecedented times, US sheet prices moved in line with our expectations over the past month. While we maintain our view on the direction of pricing during 2020 and the length of the pricing downturn, as the Covid-19 crisis deepens we have increased the magnitude of the price declines through the second quarter...Read More

Freeport-McMoRan has suspended operations at its Chino mine in the US state of New Mexico after a small number of its workers tested positive for Covid-19. Last week, three workers were confirmed to have contracted the novel coronavirus, but operations at the mine continued until the company learned of further cases. "Out of an abundance of caution and concern for the safety of our workers, we hav...Read More

Russian mining giant MMC Norilsk Nickel (Nornickel) has allocated 10.5 billion roubles ($142.2 million) "to combat Covid-19 and ensure social stability" in the regions of its operations.In preparation for the potential spread of Covid-19 to cities in which Nornickel operates, the company has taken extensive measures to purchase all the necessary medication and medical equipment...Read More

Freeport-McMoRan Inc said the concentrator at its Cerro Verde facility in Peru has been operating at roughly one-third of planned rates since the start of April as a result of efforts to prevent the spread of Covid-19.This implies a current annualized production rate of around 151,000 tonnes of copper in concentrate.The mine, in which Freeport has a 53.6% stake, is Peru's largest copper mine and t...Read More

A total of 222,020 tonnes of copper scrap has been approved for import into China in a fifth round of metal scrap import quotas, according to an April 10 release from the China Solid Waste & Chemicals Management Bureau.The latest quota is significantly larger than the 3,520 tonnes approved in the fourth round and brings the total amount of copper scrap approved by the bureau since July 2019 up to...Read More

Hot-rolled coil prices declined in the United States while the public-health efforts to halt the spread of the novel coronavirus continued to diminish industrial production and demand for steel sheet. Fastmarkets' daily steel hot-rolled coil index, fob mill US, was calculated at $24.42 per hundredweight ($488.40 per short ton) on Monday April 13, down by 0.6% from $24.57 per cwt on Thursday April...Read More