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.

What to read next
The Mexican aluminium market might be strongly affected by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, with supply constraints and consequently higher premiums, market participants told Fastmarkets on Tuesday March 10.
Lundin Mining and BHP published a preliminary economic assessment on February 16 for their Vicuña joint venture, projecting average annual copper production of 395,000 tonnes over the first 25 years of operation as Argentina’s copper concentrate pipeline continues to build. PSJ Cobre Mendocino separately confirmed on February 14 that its feasibility study was under way.
Chinese lead smelters turned more bearish on the procurement of raw materials in the week to Friday February 13, amid heightened price volatility in silver, which is often contained in lead ores as an important by-product and contributor to smelter profits, sources told Fastmarkets.
Roughly 40,000 tonnes per month of copper cathode that once flowed smoothly into the United Arab Emirates (UAE) through Jebel Ali had few options to reroute after the Strait of Hormuz officially closed on Monday March 2, with the only alternative entry points — Khor Fakkan and Fujairah — already straining under the weight of diverted cargo, market sources told Fastmarkets.
Navigating market volatility with data-driven strategies for resilient mining operations
The publication of several of Fastmarkets' copper concentrates indices was delayed on Friday February 27 because of a technical error. Fastmarkets' pricing database has been updated.