IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: 5 key stories from March 13

Here are five Fastmarkets MB stories you might have missed on Wednesday March 13 that are worth another look.

Moves to enhance electronic trading on the London Metal Exchange are not a back-door attempt to close the ring, Europe’s last open outcry trading floor, the exchange’s chief executive officer said.

The Singapore Exchange has seen a “tremendous uptick” in iron ore futures trading activity due to supply concerns following the deadly breach at one of Vale’s tailings dams earlier this year.

Rusal’s aluminium shipments to the United States are unlikely to reach pre-sanction levels this year, but the Russian aluminium producer does plan an eventual return to those levels.

After the ferro-alloys industry gathered in Hong Kong this week for Fastmarkets’ Asian Ferro-alloys conference, our reporters presented 10 of the key things learned.

Further delays in Codelco’s restart of its Chuquicamata smelter and expectations that China will cut its value-added tax rate from May have prompted a small recovery in Chinese copper premiums, Fastmarkets has learned.

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The influential annual treatment and refining charge (TC/RC) benchmark that sets the price that smelters charge miners to process their copper concentrate could be at risk, according to multiple market sources, although most believe the system, or elements of it, will remain
Fastmarkets' initial low-carbon premium for nickel briquettes captured existing regional price differences, with growing awareness and legislative incentives indicating there is potential for a strong market to emerge
The Chilean government is pushing ahead with plans for a new copper smelter despite the global smelting crisis, Chile’s minister of mining, Aurora Williams told Fastmarkets, adding that the state will also play a key role in developing the country’s premium lithium assets
Just under two weeks ago, the chair of BHP made a phone call to his counterpart at mining peer Anglo American and set in motion a flurry of activity designed to create the largest copper producer in the world
Brazilian aluminium supply coming from Companhia Brasileira de Alumínio (CBA) is said to have tightened, helping to boost the P1020A ingot premium, market participants told Fastmarkets in the two weeks to Wednesday April 24
In anticipation of a tight market, copper concentrate traders have locked in 2025 volumes at notably low treatment charges, with deals being placed well below the long-term industry benchmarks