IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: 5 key stories from May 4

Here are five Fastmarkets stories you might have missed on Monday May 4 that are worth another look.

Flat-rolled steel import prices were mostly stable week on week in South America on Friday May 1, after deals became scarce and negotiations for June-shipment cargoes finished with low interest from clients.

The European Commission’s (EC) antitrust authorities granted Europe’s largest copper smelter Aurubis unconditional approval for the €380 million ($417 million) acquisition of Belgian-Spanish recycler Metallo Group, the company said on May 4.

Mining and metalworking in Peru will gradually resume in May after a government order on Sunday May 3 targeted key industries for restarts.

Continuing weak buying interest pushed ferro-tungsten prices to a three-year low in Europe in the week to May 1.

The low-grade seaborne manganese ore indices retreated on May 1, hit by disappointing alloy tender prices and softening local alloys futures prices.

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.