IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: 5 key stories from April 4

Here are five Fastmarkets MB stories you might have missed on Thursday April 4 that are worth another look.

Fastmarkets launched seven new aluminium price assessments on Thursday April 4 – including calcined pet coke, extrusion and flat-rolled products – to expand coverage of the aluminium market from upstream to downstream.

With the annual Minor Metals Trade Association conference kicking off on April 9 in Edinburgh, Scotland, Fastmarkets looks at the price moves in the minor metals complex since last year’s conference.

Cobalt market participants have been keeping an eye out for potential non-industrial buying, such as stockpiling from China’s State Reserve Bureau, since global metal prices slid to two-year lows at the beginning of this year.

The official end of the winter heating season in China – the world’s largest iron ore consumer – a few days ago has coincided with a pickup in market interest in the price spreads between different grades of the steelmaking raw material.

Competition regulators in the European Union have rescheduled their decision in the creation of a 50:50 European flat steel joint venture between ThyssenKrupp and Tata Steel Europe to June 5 this year, the European Commission said on April 1.