ASIAN MORNING BRIEF 03/10: LME base metals rise on improved global trade sentiment; Europe imposes duties on seamless pipe, tube from Russia, Ukraine; HRC prices in Europe said poised for Q4 drop

The latest news and price moves to start the Asian day on Wednesday October 3.

Base metals prices on the London Metal Exchange were mostly higher at the close of trading on Tuesday October 2, supported by improved global trade sentiment due to the newly developed United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement in North America. Read more in our live futures report.

Here are how prices looked at the close of trading:

Comex copper prices rebounded in the US during morning trading despite a stronger dollar and poor Chinese data.

The European Commission has imposed anti-dumping duties ranging from 12.3-35.8% on imports of seamless steel pipes and tubes from Russia and Ukraine following an expiry review, the commission said.

Domestic transaction prices for hot-rolled coil across Europe are expected to decline in the fourth quarter of this year, market sources told Fastmarkets.

Brazilian foreign trade secretariat Secex has decided not to apply provisional anti-dumping duties on imports from China of rollers for steel rolling mills, Fastmarkets has learned.

The Chinese government’s measures to control pollution during the winter and supply disruptions in the seaborne coking coal market are expected to underpin prices for the steelmaking raw material in the fourth quarter.

The sustained slump in currencies combined with an influx of slab in the aftermath of recent trade measures have dragged slab import prices down in Southeast Asia and East Asia, market participants said.

The CIS export price for steel billet continued to weaken, with customer interest limited in all of the major sales outlets, Fastmarkets has heard.

Turkish steel mills continued to hold back from the deep-sea scrap markets due to low levels of demand for finished steel in the country’s domestic and export markets.

The European ferro-vanadium market stalled last week while consumers continued to sit on the sidelines. At the same time, US ferro-vanadium prices soared with the market continuing to catch up to the sharp increases seen earlier in Europe.

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