ArcelorMittal has increased its offer prices in Europe for all flat steel products by €40 ($44) per tonne, effective immediately, market sources told Fastmarkets on December 3.

A second major aluminium producer has offered the light metal for delivery in the first quarter of 2020 to main Japanese ports (MJP) on a cif basis at a premium of $95 per tonne over the London Metal Exchange cash price, three market sources told Fastmarkets on December 3.

Sustained import losses for copper and zinc in November have caused Shanghai-bonded stocks to rise for the two base metals by around 3%, while a reversal of import conditions for nickel encouraged some trading houses to draw down bonded nickel stocks last month.

Deteriorating demand is adding continual downward pressure to Chinese and European alloy prices.

Vanadium prices are unsustainably low and sentiment and prices should improve as evidenced by the recent ferro-vanadium price increase in Europe, Largo Resources chief executive officer Paulo Misk told Fastmarkets.