There were six key points for delegates of the minor metals community to take away from a busy week of meetings in Edinburgh, Scotland, for the Minor Metals Trade Association (MMTA) Conference on April 9-11.
1. Sentiment in minor metals remains gloomy...While global uncertainty and oversupply continued to weigh on minor metals price sentiment in 2019, with prices for some materials at multi-year lows, most delegates on the sidelines of the conference were talking about whether the failed Fanya minor metals trading platform would release stocks into the spot market.2. ...But there is hope for cobaltSince last year's conference in Montreal, Canada, the price of cobalt metal has taken the biggest hit of all the minor metals assessed by Fastmarkets. The benchmark price for standard-grade cobalt had fallen by 66% year-on-year on April 4.But the international cobalt benchmark price had rebounded for the first time in five months at the end of March, and that momentum continued into April, with sentiment improving during the conference amid an uptick in consumer buying and tightening...