IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: 5 key stories from June 20

Here are five Fastmarkets MB stories you might have missed on Thursday June 20 that are worth another look.

The London Metal Exchange has just finished its trial to calculate nickel prices using a volume-weighted average price method on the exchange’s electronic trading platform.

China will only permit 240,429 tonnes of copper scrap imports in the entire third quarter of 2019, sending panic across the local scrap industry, according to an official list of Chinese importers granted import quotas, seen by Fastmarkets on Thursday June 20.

Metals trader Trafigura has refuted claims from Iceberg Research, the analytics outfit that launched an explosive campaign against Noble Group, that it has overvalued “hundreds of millions [of dollars] in debt securities issued by an associate.”

United States-based iron ore producer Cleveland-Cliffs is prepared to export part of its iron ore output in the event that more furnaces are shut down in the country, its chairman and chief executive officer Lourenço Gonçalves said on Wednesday. 
 
Pilbara Minerals will restrict its lithium production in June and July due to reduced demand in the second quarter of 2019 caused by delays in the commissioning of chemical conversion capacity by the company’s key offtake partners in China.

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Brazil's aluminium industry is further enhancing its sustainability by boosting renewable energy use and recycling, while mitigating risk from high-carbon imports
German copper producer Aurubis is among the least likely to consider reducing capacity despite record low treatment charges (TCs), according to its chief executive officer
European copper demand, particularly for wire rod, remains strong and seems to be outpacing broader macro-economic growth in the region, the chief executive officer of German producer Aurubis has said.
The process to place the smaller and less efficient of the two processing plants at Los Bronces on care and maintenance is expected to be completed by mid-2024 and comes as the company pushes value over volume, the chief executive officer of Anglo American Chile said
The near-term prospects for Chinese copper smelting capacity amid near-zero treatment charges (TCs) will, to a certain extent, depend on plants’ exposure to spot TCs, the chief executive officer of Rio Tinto’s copper division said on Tuesday, April 16
It will be very difficult for many Chinese copper smelters to compete with treatment and refining charges (TC/RCs) at record lows, according to the chairman of Chile’s state-owned copper producer Codelco