IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: 5 key stories from October 16

Here are five Fastmarkets MB stories you might have missed on Wednesday October 16 that are worth another look.

Slab shipments to foreign subsidiaries and affiliates of Russia’s largest steelmaker, Novolipetsk Steel (NLMK), fell by 43% year on year in the third quarter of 2019.

A strike kicked off on October 16 at Antofagasta’s Antucoya copper project after workers could not reach an agreement on wage increases with the Chilean miner.

Persisting backwardations in London Metal Exchange forward price spreads continued to pressure global aluminium premiums in the week ended Tuesday October 15, with the benchmark duty-unpaid premium in the Dutch port of Rotterdam softening for the third week in a row.

Manganese ore traders are becoming increasingly cautious about buying seaborne cargoes after suffering severe losses on large positions amid recent price falls.

Physical zinc premiums in Shanghai softened in the week to October 15, with the import loss for bringing zinc into the region widening by just under $100 per tonne since last week; meanwhile a drop in the Northern Europe premium was exacerbated by poor demand and tight forward spreads.

What to read next
Fastmarkets will increase the frequency of its two existing CIF China port copper scrap prices and add three new grades on Monday March 16.
Jeddah in Saudi Arabia and Port of Sohar in Oman are becoming tactical workarounds for base metal exports blocked by the Strait of Hormuz closure, with cargo transiting via land-bridge to other Gulf states, such as Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates – though capacity constraints and elevated logistics costs limit availability, sources with direct visibility of Gulf supply chains told Fastmarkets.
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.