IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: 5 key stories from July 16

Here are five Fastmarkets MB stories you might have missed on Tuesday July 16 that are worth another look.

United States President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Monday July 15 aimed at maximizing the use of American-made products and materials, the third pillar of his “Buy American, Hire American” plans.

The London Metal Exchange will list Huayou’s cobalt cut cathodes with immediate effect, it announced in a note to members on July 16. 
 
Rio Tinto’s mined copper production fell by 13% year on year in April-June 2019 due to lower production from its Escondida and Kennecott projects, reflective of lower grades, the company said on July 16.

Chinese flake graphite export prices will face headwinds in the near term due to a slowdown in its traditional downstream supply chain and a surge of imported materials, delegates said on the sidelines of an industry conference in Qiandaohu, China, on July 11-12.

Ferro-Alloys Resources, the vanadium mining and processing company based in Kazakhstan, increased its output of vanadium pentoxide in the first half of this year to 71.5 tonnes, it said in a press release on Tuesday.

What to read next
The most recent financial results published by base metals mining companies highlight just how inflation is affecting profit margins, with increasing wages, financing costs and input prices all hitting profits, sources told Fastmarkets in the week to Thursday March 28
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.