Activity in the European hot-rolled coil market was low on Thursday January 21 because buyers are holding back from making new deals due to an anticipated price fall, sources told Fastmarkets. Fastmarkets calculated its daily steel hot-rolled coil index, domestic, exw Northern Europe at ?,?713.00 ($864.26) per tonne on Thursday, down by ?,?2.50 per tonne day on day from ?,?715.50 per tonne on...Read More

Negative sentiment prevailed in the Turkish deep-sea scrap import market on Thursday January 21, with offer prices continuing to slide, sources told Fastmarkets.The most recent deal heard by sources -  a Baltic Sea cargo on Wednesday January 20 - put the HMS 1&2 (80:20) price at $440 per tonne cfr.The number of offers has increased since then and prices have gone down acco...Read More

As many as one-third of the current global portfolio of tailings storage facilities (TSFs) are impaired and in need of urgent intervention, according to the Switzerland-based Responsible Mining Foundation (RMF).This means that more than 730 million tonnes of tailings pose a risk, from among the roughly 223 billion tonnes of tailings stored in more than 30,000 TSFs, including active, inactive and a...Read More

Optimism fueled by upbeat US demand and rising expectations for Feb. 12 Chinese New Year. Polished scarcities supporting prices. Rough market robust as De Beers raises prices by estimated 5%, Alrosa by 7%. Cutters increasing production after buying high volume of rough. Alrosa 4Q sales volume +107% to 17M cts. De Beers cuts sightholder list for new contract period, prioritizes clients with factori...Read More

RAPAPORT... Sales at Alrosa showed a strong recovery in the fourth quarter of 2020 amid holiday demand and a rise in activity at Indian diamond manufacturers.Revenue from rough diamonds grew 29% year on year to $1.14 billion, the company reported Thursday, as a release of pent-up demand enabled the Russian miner to offload goods that had been unsellable earlier in the year. The company's roug...Read More

RAPAPORT... The Women's Jewelry Association (WJA) has chosen Susan Chandler, the chief merchandising officer for Citizen Watch America, as president-elect of its international board of directors.In her role at WJA, Chandler will help foster community, connection and collaboration within the trade, the association said Wednesday. Last year, she served as the WJA sponsorship chair, and was instrumen...Read More

RAPAPORT... The International Gemological Institute (IGI) has updated its grading report for synthetic diamonds to include information about post-growth treatments.The reports will now outline the growth process for untreated chemical vapor deposition (CVD) or High Pressure-High Temperature (HPHT) stones, the lab said Wednesday. They will also specifically indicate those diamonds are "as grown wit...Read More

RAPAPORT... India's polished-diamond exports fell 31% to $14.17 billion in 2020, according to Rapaport calculations based on data from the country's Gem & Jewellery Export Promotion Council (GJEPC).A slump during the peak of the coronavirus crisis outweighed a recovery in the fourth quarter, with polished exports up 38% year on year in December amid holiday demand and restocking."The rece...Read More

Aurubis expects high copper prices and consequent availability of scrap metal to boost its earnings for its 2021 financial year beyond previous forecasts, it said in a release to investors on Thursday January 21. The German smelting company, which is Europe's largest copper and tin producer, raised its forecast earnings for the financial year ending September 2021 before taxes to ?,?270-330 m...Read More

(IDEX Online) - Namakwa Diamonds is to sell another exceptional fancy pink diamond recovered from its Kao mine, in Lesotho.The 25.97-ct rough stone (pictured), named Pink Dawn, comes from the same geological domain as  several other significant fancy-color stones - the 36.06-ct Pink Storm (sold in 2014) the 3.06-ct  Purple Princess (2017) and the 29.59-ct Rose of Kao (2018). The Pin...Read More

A summary of Canada-headquartered Lundin Mining's output figures for the fourth quarter and full-year 2020, as stated in its production report published on Wednesday January 20.In brief Lundin's full-year production was in line with its previous guidance of 217,000-232,000 tonnes for copper, 142,000-146,000 tonnes for zinc and 15,000-18,000 tonnes for nickel....Read More

(IDEX Online) - Alrosa's sales of rough and polished diamonds soared by a third in the last quarter of 2020, up to $1.22bn (q-on-q).The Russian state-owned miner reported average realized prices in Q4 were down by 38 per cent to $67.40 per carat q-on-q.But by the end of the year demand for for rough diamonds had become strong and stable, it said in its Q4 and 12M 2020 operating results, "driv...Read More

(IDEX Online) - Petra reported an eight per cent slip in gross revenue for the six months to December 2020, down to $178m.But it said like-for-like prices at its tender earlier this month - 382,000 carats of rough sold for $30.5m - were up by eight per cent, and had returned to pre-COVID-19 levels.  It raised $40m from the sale of the 85.6-ct Letlapa Tala Collection of blue diamonds (pic...Read More

Hidden under the big headline of the ring closing, the London Metal Exchange's recent discussion paper also asked market participants for feedback on stocks, physical movements and market squeezes. The discussion paper on Tuesday January 19 caught people's attention because of its proposal to close the open-outcry trading ring, but participants told Fastmarkets other topics are far more controvers...Read More

A summary of China's alumina and aluminium ingot imports for December 2020 and the full-year 2020 from China customs data released on January 20.Alumina:December total: 408,511 tonnes, up 0.4% year on...Read More

Lotte Aluminium has been certified against the Aluminium Stewardship Initiative (ASI) Chain of Custody (Coc) Standard at its rolling facility in Ansan, South Korea, it said on January 21.This marks the first ASI CoC certification in South Korea and the facility's operations include rolling, sepa-slitting and annealing for the production of aluminium foil.Earlier this week, Audi became the first or...Read More

Hot-rolled coil prices in the United States have eased somewhat after soaring to a record high one week ago.Fastmarkets' daily steel hot-rolled coil index, fob mill US was calculated at $55.51 per hundredweight ($1,110.20 per short ton) on Thursday January 21, down by 1.02% from $56.08 per cwt the previous day and a decrease of 4.29% from a historic high of $58 per cwt one week earlier. Input...Read More

Continued supply tightness has pushed prices for flat steel imports in the United States higher, with prices for imported hot-rolled coil, cold-rolled coil and steel plate rising to their highest in more than 12 years and that for offshore galvanized steel surging to a record high."Prices are changing sometimes multiple times in the same day," a Midwest distributor said. There's "almost a bidding...Read More

Rebar prices in Egypt remained unchanged over the week to Thursday January 21, while there was no billet import activity because of the recently imposed safeguard duties, sources told Fastmarkets.Some re-rollers want the duties on billet imports to be removed because they cannot compete with the integrated mills, Egyptian sources told Fastmarkets.Egypt cut the duty to a 13% safeguard duty on the c...Read More

Turkish rebar prices have gone down over the past week amid soft demand for material, sources said on Thursday January 21.Fastmarkets' weekly price assessment for steel reinforcing bar (rebar), domestic, exw Turkey, was 5,450-5,550 lira ($732-746) per tonne on Thursday, down from last week's 5,650-5,720 lira per tonne, including 18% VAT.Read More