Iron ore prices continue to fall in line with production restrictions imposed by the Chinese government. When will it all end?

The collapse of the iron ore market and market turbulence over Chinese property developer Evergrande Group are adding to the economic woes caused by the Delta variant of Covid-19 for much of this year.

Fastmarkets, the industry-leading cross-commodity price reporting agency (PRA), is delighted to announce the successful completion of an independent assurance review of 34 key metals benchmarks.

Steelmakers in South Korea have been priced out of the deep-sea scrap market following deals by mills in Vietnam and Bangladesh over the past week, sources told Fastmarkets on Friday September 17.

Fastmarkets proposes to change the frequency of its iron ore value-in-use indices from weekly to daily.

Steel billet buyers in China have continued to make import purchases in recent days amid expectations that further domestic production cuts will be imposed at the start of next year, sources told Fastmarkets on Tuesday September 7.

Shanghai-listed Hainan Mining says it will invest no more than 1.065 billion yuan ($164 million) for the construction of a 20,000-tonnes-per-year battery-grade lithium hydroxide plant in Dongfang Lingang Industrial Park in China’s Hainan province.

Base metals prices on the London Metal Exchange were up across the board this morning, Wednesday July 7, suggesting dip buying after Tuesday’s weakness that saw copper, aluminium and nickel fall by 2%, or more.

Base metals prices on the Shanghai Futures Exchange, apart from those for lead, were up during morning trading on Tuesday July 6. Those on the London Metal Exchange were mixed, but that was after a generally positive day on Monday.

China bucked the trend among major iron ore importers by continuing to increase its purchases of the steelmaking raw material from abroad in 2020.