IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: 5 key stories from February 20

Here are five Fastmarkets stories you might have missed on Thursday February 20 that are worth another look.

US-based metallurgical coal producer Warrior Met Coal has announced plans to develop a hard coking coal project in Alabama with a capacity of 3.9-million-tonnes per year, through an investment of around $550-600 million over the next five years.

Alcoa Corp has been certified by the Aluminium Stewardship Initiative (ASI) to market products under ASI’s chain of custody standard.

Copper output by global miner Anglo American was down slightly in 2019, which the company attributed to the year being one of the driest on record in Chile, it said on February 20.

China’s stainless steel market saw some activity over the past week following several weeks of stagnation as a result of the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) outbreak in the country.

HBIS Group’s Chenggang will conduct maintenance on one of its four blast furnaces (BFs) from February 20, which will reduce around 300 tonnes per month of vanadium pentoxide (V2O5) output, market sources told Fastmarkets.

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.