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.

What to read next
Fastmarkets proposes to amend the frequency of the publication of several US base metal price assessments to a monthly basis, including MB-PB-0006 lead 99.97% ingot premium, ddp Midwest US; MB-SN-0036 tin 99.85% premium, in-whs Baltimore; MB-SN-0011 tin 99.85% premium, ddp Midwest US; MB-NI-0240 nickel 4x4 cathode premium, delivered Midwest US and MB-NI-0241 nickel briquette premium, delivered Midwest US.
The news that President-elect Donald Trump is considering additional tariffs on goods from China as well as on all products from US trading partners Canada and Mexico has spurred alarm in the US aluminium market at a time that is usually known to be calm.
Unlike most other commodities, cobalt is primarily a by-product – with 60% derived from copper and 38% from nickel – so how will changes in those markets change the picture for cobalt in the coming months following a year of price weakness and oversupply in 2024?
Copper recycling will become increasingly critical as the world transitions to cleaner energy systems, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said in a special report published early this week.
Fastmarkets proposes to lower the frequency of its assessments for MB-AL-0389 aluminium low-carbon differential P1020A, US Midwest and MB-AL-0390 aluminium low-carbon differential value-added product US Midwest. Fastmarkets also proposes to extend the timing window of these same assessments to include any transaction data concluded within up to 18 months.
Fastmarkets invited feedback from the industry on its non-ferrous and industrial minerals methodologies, via an open consultation process between October 8 and November 6, 2024. This consultation was done as part of our published annual methodology review process.