IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: 5 key stories from June 26

Here are five Fastmarkets stories you might have missed on Friday June 26 that are worth another look.

The price for flat-rolled steel imported into South American main destinations has edged downward week on week, with Chinese offers remaining steady, while material from other origins was presented at lower prices.

The closure of the Chuquicamata copper smelter in Chile could last up to two weeks, Fastmarkets learned on June 26.

“How did I get into this? It started with a personal investment in early 2018, when the company and analysts were very upbeat on its finances… But in the second half of 2018, all of a sudden it changed,” Kris Vansanten says clearly and firmly over the phone from Belgium.

En+ Group is working to develop technology that will fundamentally change the aluminium smelting process with the goal of further reducing emissions and potentially becoming carbon negative, the company’s chairman said in a digital interview with Fastmarkets.

The standard for lithium compounds used in battery applications should be set by battery manufacturers and original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) based on technological development rather than government authorities, lithium market experts Emily Hersh and Daniel Jimenez said in a Fastmarkets’ lithium webinar on Tuesday June 23.

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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