WEEK IN BRIEF: Aluminium premiums; copper climbs; Noble results; SFP sale talks

Conference season was in full swing last week, and the news was coming in thick and fast. Here we take a look at some of the key stories from the past week.

Conference season was in full swing this week, and the news was coming in thick and fast. Here we take a look at some of the key stories from the past seven days.

This time last year aluminium premiums in Europe, the USA and Asia were rising rapidly on pent-up consumer spot-buying. In 2015 it is the other way around.

Find out more about what is going on in 2015 in Europe, Brazilthe USA and Japan

If you want all Metal Bulletin’s premiums in a weekly emailed newsletter, contact Merrin Higgins, who can set it up for you. 

Copper climbs
Copper prices climbed on the week on short covering and technical buying after the return of China on Wednesday, following the New Year celebrations. Rises were capped by profit-taking on Friday. Click here for the story

The big question: what did copper prices pre- and post-Chinese New Year suggest to brokers and traders? 

European copper smelter Aurubis considered the possible ramifications of Russia renewing its export tax on cathode, which Metal Bulletin sister publication Copper Price Briefing first reported earlier in February. More here on a “double-edged sword”

And what has caused the big deliveries into LME sheds? Copper Price Briefing editor Mark Burton asked a top executive in the European copper market

Manganese ore miner Kudumane Manganese Resources has been placed under supervision and business rescue proceedings must commence, a South African court has ordered. Janie Davies had the story. 

Key base metal facts
Base metal imports into China in January: a concise breakdown here

A big planned merger in silicon and ferro-silicon has led to monopoly concerns. Metal Bulletin’s Chloe Smith canvassed a market where more supply might be concentrated in one party’s hands 

Noble results
Trading company Noble Resources published its results (profits dropped, though metal volumes increased). 

It also talked about Iceberg, the company that has made a series of allegations about it. Find out more here

Minors
Speciality metals producer 5N Plus expects the Fanya Metal Exchange “or something similar” to come back into the bismuth market, providing some stability to prices.

Since the Fanya Metal Exchange’s inception in 2011, it has provoked curiosity in the minor metals markets as growing stockpiles drove indium prices up 55% and bismuth up 65% at their peak, with many struggling to understand how it worked and who was behind it.

Here, Metal Bulletin takes a closer look at two of the top executives behind the Fanya exchange

Cobalt trading house SFP Metals is, meanwhile, understood to have held talks with a number of parties about its potential sale. More here

And cobalt prices are still languishing in the low teens amid weak demand and poor economic indicators. Still, with expectations of price hikes in the long-term, Metal Bulletin considers if, and when, we’ll see a real price surge

Standard Bank’s commodities co-chief Jim Coupland is leaving after 20 years at the bank, a company spokesman confirmed to Metal Bulletin. 

Alex Harrison 
aharrison@metalbulletin.com
Twitter: @alexharrison_mb 

Fleur Ritzema 
fritzema@metalbulletin.com
Twitter: FleurRitzema_MB 

What to read next
Century Aluminum is among those selected to start award negotiations for up to $500 million in Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act funding to build a new aluminium smelter, the company said on Monday March 25
Participants in the copper concentrates market are struggling to comprehend an “unstoppable” decline in treatment and refinement charges (TC/RCs), with every week bringing spot deals at fresh lows and rumors each “crazier” than the last, sources have told Fastmarkets
The US Department of Energy selected five base metals projects to receive more than $900 million in federal investment from its Industrial Demonstration Program (IDP), leading to a reduction of four million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions annually, according to a statement by the Department on Monday March 25
Aluminium producer and recycler Constellium announced on Tuesday March 12 that the company is moving to test hydrogen utilization at an industrial scale as a power source in its casthouses
Fastmarkets has corrected its MB-ALU-0002 alumina index, fob Australia and its MB-ALU-0010 alumina inferred index, fob Brazil, which were published incorrectly on Monday March 18.
The publication of Fastmarkets’ US base metals prices were published early during the week of March 11-15 following the daylight saving time change in the US on March 10.