In the past year, trade policy has and continues to fuel change and dynamics in the North American steel market. Meanwhile, inflation has remained at or above 2.7% while the Fed Fund rate hovers around 2.64. The consumer continues to bear a growing burden to keep the economy from stalling, as finished goods markets search for their own nadir, stability and potential growth paths.

Accelerating energy storage deployment is reshaping lithium demand, broadening the market beyond electric vehicles (EVs) and reducing reliance on a single growth driver.

The European Union’s Industrial Accelerator Act (IAA), published on Wednesday March 4, was a new step in the bloc’s efforts to decarbonize heavy industry and to support strategic supply chains in sectors such as steel, cement and aluminium.

The aluminium market is being pulled in two directions by the Middle East conflict: upstream feedstocks sit in temporary buffer stocks, while delivering metal to consuming regions is becoming increasingly difficult.

Jeddah in Saudi Arabia and Port of Sohar in Oman are becoming tactical workarounds for base metal exports blocked by the Strait of Hormuz closure, with cargo transiting via land-bridge to other Gulf states, such as Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates – though capacity constraints and elevated logistics costs limit availability, sources with direct visibility of Gulf supply chains told Fastmarkets.

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The steel market is increasingly pivoting away from blast furnace (BF) production and toward electric-arc furnaces (EAFs), Keith Shuttlesworth, chief commercial officer of clean iron technology company Electra, told Fastmarkets in an interview on Tuesday March 10.

The auto industry is well-positioned to accelerate the use of lower emissions steel and automakers are increasingly using the material to boost competitiveness in the EV market.

Guinea, the world's biggest bauxite producer, is considering plans to compel miners to curb exports of bauxite in a bid to halt the slump in the price of the key raw material for aluminium production, sources told Fastmarkets on Monday March 9.

Canadian miner Teck Resources and Korea Zinc have agreed to set treatment charges (TCs) for zinc concentrates at $85 per tonne this year, a slight adjustment from last year’s all-time low of $80 per tonne, four sources told Fastmarkets on Friday March 6.