A cargo of 30,000 tonnes of Chinese-origin alumina has been sold at 2,810 yuan ($417.10) per tonne fob Yantai port to Glencore in recent days, a source familiar with the matter told Fastmarkets on Friday March 29. The cargo has been loaded and was approaching Yantai port in northeast of China this week with its destination unknown, several sources confirmed.
The London Metal Exchange has announced new warehouse reform proposals – the friendliest to warehousers in seven years – that aim to make LME warehousing attractive again and encourage more metal onto the exchange. In a discussion paper sent to members on Friday March 29, the exchange proposed relaxing queue-based rent capping (QBRC) to 80 days, lower rent and Free On Truck (FOT) fees, as well as measures to allow the market to break evergreen rent deals simply by cancelling metal rather than needing to deliver metal out.
Brazilian miner Vale reported reduced nickel production of 244,600 tonnes in 2018, down 15.1% from 2017’s 288,200 tonnes. The depressed year-on-year figures come despite the company increasing its fourth-quarter nickel production by 14.9% to 64,000 tonnes, up from 55,700 tonnes in the third quarter of 2018.
Miner MMG has declared force majeure on copper concentrate supply contracts from the Las Bambas mine in Peru. Two customers due to receive tonnages said they had been told by offtake partners they would not be receiving material as contracted.
China exported 596 tonnes of ferro-vanadium (basis 75% vanadium) in February, an increase of 2.6% month on month and 148% year on year respectively, according to official but unconfirmed data seen by Fastmarkets. The volume of ferro-vanadium exports in the first two months of 2019 totaled 1,177 tonnes, recording a year-on-year rise of 83.9%, the date showed.
