ASIAN MORNING BRIEF 16/11: Zinc price rallies on LME despite low stocks; Jiangxi Copper, Antofagasta agree to 2019 TC/RC terms; Chinese nickel investment may not quickly ease tight supply

Zinc futures on the London Metal Exchange rallied by 3% at the close on Thursday November 15, ending a weeklong downward trend and supported by a decade-low in total LME inventories. Read more in our live futures report.

Here are how prices looked at the close of trading:

Jiangxi Copper and Antofagasta have agreed to terms on 2019 copper concentrate treatment and refining charges (TC/RCs) at $80.80 per tonne/8.08 cents per lb, sources from both companies confirmed to Fastmarkets.

Planned investment by China in high-pressure acid-leaching (HPAL) projects for nickel mining will materialize, but might not be a quick solution to tightness in the nickel market, market participants told Fastmarkets.

Liquidity in the Pacific alumina market has picked up, even as prices slid to an eight-month low.

The European Commission has decided that flat-rolled stainless steel products originating from South Africa should be excluded from the scope of its provisional safeguard measures on steel product imports.

Concamin, the Mexican Industrial Chambers Confederation, is urging authorities in the country to negotiate an end to the United States’ use of Section 232 import tariffs before signing the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement, it said in a letter published this week.

Antofagasta aims to increase copper capacity by 70,000 tonnes per year via a rebuild of its Los Pelambres mine in Chile at a cost of $1.3 billion, with reconstruction set to be complete by 2021.

Bluequest Sourcing, a wholly owned subsidiary of commodity trading house Bluequest Resources, has advanced Xiana Mining’s secured convertible loan facility to support its acquisition of Minera Altos De Punitaqui from Glencore.