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    • The top management of ThyssenKrupp Stainless will meet this week to decide the future of the business. The fate of the company’s Benrath mill near Dusseldorf in Germany is in the balance. And how the company will manage its share in Shanghai Krupp Stainless (SKS), a joint venture with Baosteel, will also be up for discussion. ThyssenKrupp’s stainless steel business has fared better than many others. But the past few years have still been hard. All of Europe’s leading stainless steelmakers are laboring with serious overcapacity. So it’s no wonder Thyssen is talking about restructuring. The company’s Benrath facility will probably be shut down.
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    • Stemcor and Macquarie Bank have traded an over-the-counter (OTC) cash-settled Chinese hot rolled coil swap, brokered by Freight Investor Services (FIS).
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    • The end of the year is fast approaching. Steelmakers should brace themselves for more upheaval in the way their raw materials are priced. By now, they should be used to change. In 2010 the annually-agreed longterm prices traditionally prevalent in iron ore and coking coal all but disappeared. In their place are quarterly-settled, index-linked contracts. But, less than a year into their new life, these contracts as well could be set to change. BHP Billiton, the world’s largest seaborne coking coal supplier and third-largest seaborne iron ore supplier, says a number of its customers have already asked about monthly coking coal prices next year.
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    • MB’s Ferro-alloys conference is an event naturally dominated by sellers. In steel industry structural terms, anyway. And, with more than 1,000 market participants gathered in Berlin, it’s little surprise that things got bullish pretty quickly. The economic crisis is winding down. The days of doom and gloom are fading. And the commodities super-cycle, driven by China, is only just getting started, analysts and industry players said at the event. So raw materials supply is going to be pretty tight for the next decade, they reckon. There’s some reason to believe that’s true.
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    • The over-the-counter (OTC) market for ferrous derivatives is growing — both in terms of volume and sophistication
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    • MB steel editor Phillip Price interviews Marcegaglia ceo Antonio Marcegaglia in Rome, ahead of MB’s Stainless & Special Steels Summit, held in conjunction with SMR in Rome.
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    • The Bureau of International Recycling (BIR) meeting in Brussels last week was the association’s second gathering of the year.
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    • Physically-backed exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in base metals will not affect prices in the medium to long term because investors will sell back to the market if tightness appears, according to research by Goldman Sachs
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    • Japan is a heavyweight on the international scene
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    • Eiji Hayashida is the president and ceo of JFE Steel, Japan's second largest steelmaker by tonnage in 2009.
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    Top stories across markets

    Fastmarkets’ copper concentrates treatment and refining charges (TC/RC) index remains at its highest level since March 2019 this week, with Chinese smelters more active on taking tonnages as production slowly comes back with logistics resumption.

    This year’s annual benchmark treatment charges (TCs) for zinc and lead concentrates are expected to rise due to high supply and the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) outbreak in China and beyond affecting the raw materials market.

    The equity markets barometer suggests concerns over the economic impact of the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) have picked up again over the past 24 hours, with Asian equities weaker this morning, Friday February 21, as are most of the metals.

    Base metals prices on the Shanghai Futures Exchange were broadly down at the close of morning trading on Friday February 21, with risk appetite weakening due to a rise in novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) cases outside of China.

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