EUROPEAN MORNING BRIEF 26/04: SHFE zinc prices under pressure; HKEX appoints Cha as chairman; Vale’s base metals earnings grow 45.7% in Q1

Good morning from Metal Bulletin’s offices in Asia as we bring you the latest news and pricing stories on Thursday April 26.

Base metals prices on the Shanghai Futures Exchange were broadly down during Asian morning trading on Thursday, with zinc prices leading the decline following a large delivery of the metal into London Metal Exchange sheds in Antwerp on Wednesday.

Check Metal Bulletin’s live futures report here.

LME snapshot at 04.10 am London time
Latest three-month LME Prices
  Price ($ per tonne)  Change since yesterday’s close ($)
Copper 6,975 -33
Aluminium 2,225 -20
Lead 2,317.50 11.5
Zinc 3,124.50 -10.5
Tin 21,215 -35
Nickel 14,065 -80

SHFE snapshot at 10.14 am Shanghai time
Most-traded SHFE contracts
  Price (yuan per tonne)  Change since yesterday’s close (yuan)
Copper  51,660 110
Aluminium 14,370 -35
Zinc 23,710 -455
Lead 18,185 -30
Tin  146,940 840
Nickel  103,110 -190

Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing has appointed local businesswoman and politician Laura Cha as its new chairman of the board, the exchange announced on Thursday.

Vale’s base metals business posted a 45.7% increase in its core earnings in the first quarter of 2018 from a year earlier, helped primarily by the higher realized nickel prices during the period, the Brazilian diversified miner said on Wednesday.

Most lead scrap prices in the United States have climbed higher due to growing competition for material in the domestic market following a slight renewal in export activity, but zinc scrap prices held steady across the board.

The manganese supply squeeze continued to push manganese flakes higher this week, with prices climbing more than 8%.

Sanction panic in the aluminium market has calmed following the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets and Control’s slight loosening of sanctions involving Rusal material.

Lucas Giannini, an aluminium trader with Gerald Group in London, will leave the company at the end of April, sources close to the situation told Metal Bulletin on Wednesday.

What to read next
Asian spot copper premiums rose in the week ended Tuesday July 23, with premiums imported into China increasing on improved arbitrage terms. In the US market, supply failed to keep up with strong demand while in Europe participants were mostly off for the summer holidays
In the fourth episode of Fastmarkets critical minerals podcast Fast Forward, Freeport-McMoRan CEO and president Kathleen Quirk tells host Andrea Hotter why there's a preference to build and not build new supplies of copper right now
Demand for primary aluminium from the green transition remains a “brighter spot” for consumption amid an otherwise challenging downstream demand outlook, Eivind Kallevik, Norsk Hydro’s chief executive officer and president, told Fastmarkets in an exclusive interview on Tuesday July 23
Acquisition Company Limited (ACG) has agreed to buy the Gediktepe mine in Turkey — the company’s first deal as it works to build a sizeable mid-tier copper producer, its chairman and chief executive officer told Fastmarkets.
Copper market price speculation is driving the base metals narrative, head of research at UK-based services provider Sucden Financial Daria Efanova said during the company’s third-quarter metals webinar on Wednesday July 17.
Chinese mining giant CMOC reported a 178% year-on-year increase in cobalt metal production for the first six months of 2024, according to an announcement by the company on Friday July 12