IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: 5 key stories from July 11

Here are five Fastmarkets MB stories you might have missed on Thursday July 11 that are worth another look.

Mexican steel association Canacero has denied that Mexican fabricated structural steel producers who export to the United States have been receiving subsidies, as alleged by US authorities.

One of the world’s biggest copper miners, Chile’s Antofagasta, began to break away from the traditional annual price benchmark system this week by sealing an early deal with Chinese smelters to supply concentrates for the first half of 2020. The deal has raised questions in the market over the viability of the annual copper concentrate treatment charge/refinement charge (TC/RC) benchmark system long before October, when negotiations typically start.

The London Metal Exchange nickel price rose to a three-month high of $13,140 per tonne during morning trading on Thursday July 11 following news from Indonesia’s Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources that the country will stop the export of unprocessed laterite ore in 2022.

A sharp increase in global freight rates over the past seven to 10 days has eroded market participants’ manganese ore margins and caused shipments to be postponed, sources told Fastmarkets.

Chinese stainless steelmaker Tsingshan Holding Group has completed construction of its 600,000-tonne-per-year cold-rolling mill in India and is currently putting it through its final stage of testing.

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