Here are five Fastmarkets stories you might have missed on Monday February 22 that are worth another look.China allowed five cargoes of Australian coking coal to be unloaded last week after a wait of several months, industry sources told Fastmarkets on February 22.The year...Read More

A key topic reverberating around the Asian steel market over the past month has been the possibility of China reducing steel export rebates to 9% from the current 13%, or possibly axing them altogether.Market chatter on this topic has grown increasingly louder, with industry sources in China hearing more and more details about these plans from late January onward."This is likely in line with China...Read More

A shortage of containers to ship commodities around the world and the consequent soaring in associated freight rates have led to a revival of interest in breakbulk cargoes. Producers and physical traders of metals, agricultural, chemical and timber products have been starting to book shipments in breakbulk vessels, which cost far less and doesn't require vast amounts of equipment in port. On the m...Read More

The Biden administration's focus on US manufacturing and domestic supply chains will benefit established and developing minerals and metals sectors, including steel, rare earths, graphite and lithium.US President Joe Biden's executive order on the strengthening of American manufacturing, which he signed during his first week in office, is expected to have a direct effect on demand for US-produced...Read More

The prices of both copper and tin showed gains at the close of trading on Monday February 22, but signs of fatigue have started to emerge for the bulls in charge of nickel, which was down by 0.5% on a day when the entire London Metal Exchange base-metals complex set new multi-year highs.Copper closed up by 2.1%, at $9,097 per tonne, compared with Friday's 5pm price of $8,909.50 per tonne, while ti...Read More

Seaborne premium hard coking coal prices in the fob and cfr markets diverged on Monday February 22 with new transactions heard, Fastmarkets was told.Fastmarkets indicesPremium hard coking coal, fob DBCT: $137.05 per tonne, down $4.08 per tonnePremium hard coking coal, cfr Jingtang: $223.39 per tonne, up $5.91 per tonneHard coking coal, fob DBCT: $130.07 per tonne, down $4 per tonneHard coking coal...Read More

Base metals prices on the London Metal Exchange and Shanghai Futures Exchange were up significantly across the board this morning, Monday February 22, with all base metals on the LME setting fresh multi- month or year highs.Relief that vaccine programmes are being rolled out across many countries to underpin economic recovery, along with the knowledge that past and future stimulus packages will be...Read More

The latest forecasts from Fastmarkets' team of analysts are ready to view.Chinese export prices for seamless oil country tubular goods (OCTG) and linepipe barely moved in February 2021, after rallying in January, because the holidays to celebrate the Lunar New Year curbed market activity sharply.With the holiday now ended, we have seen some sharp jumps in round billet prices and we expect there to...Read More

A few days to go before we find out how much silver is really needed...by J. Johnson via JS MinesetGreat and Wonderful Monday Morning Folks, It's the day before our precious metals options for March come off the board and Gold is totally ignoring it (for now) with the trade up $17.50 at $1,794.90 and right close to the high at $1,797.70 with the low at $1,778.60. Silver is doing the sa...Read More

"...suggests that Silver is congesting in a new momentum base and should begin an explosive upside price rally - comparable to..."by Chris Vermeulen of The Technical TradersGold continues to wallow near its recent low price level, near $1765. Silver has continued to trend moderately higher - but still has not broken out to the upside. Many analysts have continued to estimate when and how metal...Read More

The latest forecasts from Fastmarkets' team of analysts are ready to view.This month's key North American steel forecast highlights:US hot-rolled coil prices moved in line with our forecasts in January, with actual prices modestly exceeding our forecasts for the month. Fastmarkets' US HRC index averaged $1,099 per ton in January, slightly above our forecast price of $1,075 per ton for the month. W...Read More

The latest forecasts from Fastmarkets' team of analysts are ready to view.The uptrend in European flat steel prices continued in January 2021 as expected, with the prices for hot-rolled coil in the North and South of the region averaging ?,?698 and ?,?686 ($840 and $826) per tonne respectively, within 1% of the Fastmarkets research forecasts.With European HRC prices climbing to their highest level...Read More

The latest forecasts from Fastmarkets' team of analysts are ready to view.The conequences of the Covid-19 pandemic on energy demand affected oil and gas prices through much of 2020 and weighed on drilling rates and demand for oil-country tubular goods (OCTG) in most regions.These effects were most likely to continue well into 2021 and perhaps longer, according to Fastmarkets OCTG Intelligence Serv...Read More

The latest forecasts from Fastmarkets' team of analysts are ready to view.This month's key ferro-alloy forecast highlights:?EUR?In a strong start to the year, January saw ore and alloy pricing gains across all markets priced by Fastmarkets - with the exception of Chinese silicon metal export prices, which retreated slightly last month after posting impressive gains in December 2020.The combination...Read More

The latest forecasts from Fastmarkets' team of analysts are ready to view.Key ferro-alloy forecast highlights for the coming months:?EUR? A strong recovery in both bulk and noble alloys is expected in 2021 but the markets are unlikely to return to the levels seen before the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic. We have seen a quicker-than-expected recovery across various regions amid the economic fal...Read More

The latest forecasts from Fastmarkets' team of analysts are ready to view.Fastmarkets analysts were invited to present our outlook for the coking coal market at Coaltrans Asia, held online on November 23-25. One of the key topics at the event was the trade tensions between China and Australia, which overtook Mongolia to become the largest coking coal exporter to China this year...Read More

The latest forecasts from Fastmarkets' team of analysts is ready to view.We spoke in our previous tracker of stainless steel prices ending 2020 on a high. That trend has continued during early 2021 and, in fact, the upward rally in prices has increased its momentum.Compared with the monthly price increase of some 5% seen at the end of 2020, prices for grade-304 stainless steel in al...Read More

The latest forecasts from Fastmarkets' team of analysts is ready to view.Prices of stainless steel are generally set to reach highs for the year as 2020 comes to a close. For the most common nickel-containing grades of stainless steel, this upward trend is being driven above all by rising nickel prices, which themselves are hitting relatively high levels into the end of 2020.The price increases si...Read More

The latest forecasts from Fastmarkets' team of analysts is ready to view.While much commentary has been written about Asian economies performing far better than those elsewhere this year during the global Covid-19 pandemic, it is stainless steel markets in Europe and the United States that are ending the year in better shape than their Asian counterparts.We do not talk of demand levels or demand g...Read More

Domestic prices for steel hot-rolled coil in Northern Europe increased over the week to Friday February 19, supported by good order books at domestic producers and solid demand.Prices in the South of the region, in the meantime, were stable over the same period.Fastmarkets calculated its daily steel hot-rolled coil index, domestic, exw Northern Europe, at ?,?723.75 ($877.00) per tonne on February...Read More