Charge chrome prices have held at a 25-month low throughout July, highlighting the challenges South African producers are facing with rising production costs.
A slump in global automotive sales in the first half of the year continues to put pressure on tungsten prices, with ammonium paratungstate and ferro-tungsten prices in Europe now falling to their lowest levels since 2017.
Intense buying from Chinese speculators and foreign traders over the past two weeks is unlikely to cause China’s cobalt metal market to slip into a significant supply deficit in the near term, market participants told Fastmarkets.
The accelerated ramp-up of the new Cobre Panama copper mine in the central American country has brought the start of its commercial production forward by several months to before the end of the third quarter, according to owner First Quantum Minerals.
Seaborne iron ore prices rose on Tuesday July 30 on news that production restrictions on steelmakers in northern China over August are likely to be relaxed.
