Base metals prices on the London Metal Exchange were down across the board on Tuesday July 27, after a generally upbeat day on Monday, while the base metals on the Shanghai Futures Exchange were mixed this morning.

Turkish steel producers started the week with no deep-sea trade after the holiday periods in the country, market participants said on Monday July 26.

Base metals prices on the Shanghai Futures Exchange were up by an average of 1.1% this morning, Monday July 26, while they followed Friday’s gains on the London Metal Exchange that averaged 1.3%.

The Turkish steel mills continued to limit their deep-sea scrap bookings in the week ended Friday July 16 due to weak finished steel sales, while the downturn in the country had a knock-on effect on prices in the global markets.

Prices for shredded steel scrap imports into Pakistan and India were stable on Friday July 23 due to slow trading and public holidays, sources told Fastmarkets.

The Vietnam Steel Association (VSA) is leading an industry-wide pushback against the country’s proposed export tax of 5% on steel billet, it said on Friday July 23.

Base metals prices on both the London Metal Exchange and Shanghai Futures Exchange were generally stronger this morning, Friday July 23, the exception was lead on the LME that was down by 0.5%, but that was after a strong gain on Thursday.

Fastmarkets has corrected its alumina index, fob Australia, which was published incorrectly on Tuesday July 20 and Wednesday July 21 due to an index calculation error.

A fire at the Chilean producer SQM's largest iodine plant caused a temporary outage of two of the plant's three iodine production lines, the company confirmed to Fastmarkets.

Fastmarkets’ Asia ferro-silicon prices were published early today due to an editor error.