IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: 5 key stories from August 21

Here are five Fastmarkets MB stories you might have missed on Wednesday August 21 that are worth another look.

Swiss trading house Trafigura has begun blending copper concentrates in Malaysia, with small batches of output being offered to the market, Fastmarkets has learned.

Zinc premiums in the United States widened upward in the week to Tuesday August 20 despite dampened consumption from steel mills, while lead premiums dropped in India and Southeast Asia, unaffected by Nystar’s Port Pirie outage.

The offtake agreement that sees Glencore market the vanadium pentoxide (V2O5) produced by Largo Resources in Brazil will not be renewed when it expires on April 30, 2020, the latter said late on August 20.

Turkey’s steel end-product consumption totaled 12.3 million tonnes in January-June 2019, down by 32.3% compared with the same period 2018, according to the Turkish Steel Producers’ Association (TÇÜD).

Nickel premiums in China fell due to a widened arbitrage loss in the week to August 20, while nickel premiums in Europe and the United States held steady during the quiet summer period despite a tightening forward curve and London Metal Exchange price volatility.

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The proposal would align the index more closely with physically traded volumes in the region, and enable it to adjust to evolving market conditions. This proposal follows an observed widening of the spread between trader and smelter purchase components of the index and is aligned with a majority of market feedback. Additionally, Fastmarkets seeks feedback […]
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Fastmarkets is extending the consultation period for the methodology of several of its black mass payables indicators and prices, and is also proposing changes to the names of CIF South Korea and EWX Europe black mass prices.
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Fastmarkets has corrected its copper concentrates treatment and refinement charge indices, which were published incorrectly on March 20 2026 due to a technical error.