IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: 5 key stories from September 23

Here are five Fastmarkets MB stories from Monday September 23 that are worth another look.

China has announced a fourth round of copper scrap import quotas to allow an extra 31,658 tonnes of copper scrap into the country by the end of 2019, the environmental ministry said on September 23.

Faced with high and increasing emissions costs during a period of challenging market conditions, the steel industry is driving a change toward carbon neutral and fossil-fuel-free steel production in a bid to evolve and stay afloat.

The market for low carbon ferro-chrome (0.10% C) in Europe rose on Friday September 20, indicating that prices had bottomed-out at a historic low level, with demand remaining subdued.

The federal court in Belém, Brazil, has lifted one of the embargoes on Alunorte’s new bauxite residue deposit area, producer Norsk Hydro announced on September 20.

Chinese ferro-silicon smelters held their offer prices, which earlier this month hit a 27-month low, last week in expectation of renewed demand from consumers in the steel sector ahead of a national holiday next week, while in Europe steelmakers seemed in no rush to replenish their ferro-alloys feedstocks.

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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