IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: 5 key stories from March 11

Here are five Fastmarkets MB stories you might have missed on Monday March 11 that are worth another look.

The London Metal Exchange and Fastmarkets launched three new cash-settled derivative contracts on Monday March 11 to provide effective risk management tools for the aluminium, alumina and cobalt markets.

The LME is at the heart of yet another warehousing conundrum, with pressure mounting for a ruling on why the linked load-in/load-out rule was not activated at end of January despite a large queue of Glencore-owned aluminium appearing at Istim’s warehouses in Malaysia.

Malaysia and India have unique competitive advantages in manganese alloy production that other Asian alloy producers are unable to match, according to panelists at Fastmarkets’ Asian Ferro-alloys conference in Hong Kong on Monday March 11.

The global copper supply chain could be underestimating the market impact of Chinese scrap cuts amid the country’s growing consumption, established industry expert Jonathan Barnes told Fastmarkets.

A move toward buying almost all ferro-alloys on long-term contracts has left the spot market industry in the United States so quiet that some traders are looking at China to understand spot fundamentals, Barry Lazar, chief executive officer of steel raw materials supplier Medima, said this week.

What to read next
Fastmarkets proposes to amend the frequency of the publication of several US base metal price assessments to a monthly basis, including MB-PB-0006 lead 99.97% ingot premium, ddp Midwest US; MB-SN-0036 tin 99.85% premium, in-whs Baltimore; MB-SN-0011 tin 99.85% premium, ddp Midwest US; MB-NI-0240 nickel 4x4 cathode premium, delivered Midwest US and MB-NI-0241 nickel briquette premium, delivered Midwest US.
The news that President-elect Donald Trump is considering additional tariffs on goods from China as well as on all products from US trading partners Canada and Mexico has spurred alarm in the US aluminium market at a time that is usually known to be calm.
Unlike most other commodities, cobalt is primarily a by-product – with 60% derived from copper and 38% from nickel – so how will changes in those markets change the picture for cobalt in the coming months following a year of price weakness and oversupply in 2024?
Copper recycling will become increasingly critical as the world transitions to cleaner energy systems, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said in a special report published early this week.
Fastmarkets proposes to lower the frequency of its assessments for MB-AL-0389 aluminium low-carbon differential P1020A, US Midwest and MB-AL-0390 aluminium low-carbon differential value-added product US Midwest. Fastmarkets also proposes to extend the timing window of these same assessments to include any transaction data concluded within up to 18 months.
Fastmarkets invited feedback from the industry on its non-ferrous and industrial minerals methodologies, via an open consultation process between October 8 and November 6, 2024. This consultation was done as part of our published annual methodology review process.