IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: 5 key stories from May 1

Here are five Fastmarkets MB stories you might have missed on Wednesday May 1 that are worth another look.

Vanadium producer Bushveld Minerals has agreed to buy multiple South African production assets for $68 million, it said on Wednesday May 1. The South Africa-based miner will acquire Duferco Vanadium Investment Holding’s Vanchem plant, the ferro-vanadium business of its subsidiary South African Japan Vanadium (SAJV), and all the shares in subsidiary Ivanti Resources. 

A strike has broken out at Minsur’s San Rafael tin mine in Peru, the world’s fifth-biggest tin producer. Minsur notified the Peruvian stock exchange on April 30 of what it called an illegal strike of indefinite duration.

Weak United States aluminium premiums and increased ocean shipping costs led to a continued narrowing of the estimated arbitrage between Southeast Asia warehouses and the US Midwest. Fastmarkets assessment for the average monthly midpoint of the P1020 US Midwest aluminium premium was at $418.87 per tonne in April, flat from March.

The UK government has agreed to provide long steel producer British Steel a loan worth £120 million ($156 million) to cover the annual bill from the European Union for the company’s carbon emissions, government business secretary Greg Clark told the UK Parliament on Wednesday May 1.

Australian lithium spodumene concentrate producer Mineral Resources has announced lower first-quarter spodumene production at its Mount Marion mine in Western Australia. It produced 106,683 tonnes of lithium spodumene concentrate, at the Mount Marion operation in the south-central region of the state, in the January-March quarter, down by 7.23% from the 115,000 tonnes produced in the previous quarter, Mineral Resources said this week.