PRICING NOTICE: Proposal to reduce publication frequency of a number of base metals premiums

The proposed changes would affect our copper, aluminium, zinc, lead and tin premium assessments, while our nickel offering would be unchanged.

The main pricing day will continue to be Tuesdays (at 3-4pm London time) but a number of premiums would be assessed every two weeks or once a month instead of weekly.

Fastmarkets selects the frequency of publication of a market after considering the number of data points (deals, bids, offers, deals heard and assessments) that it can reasonably expect to collect on a consistent basis over the selected period to support the price assessment process.

Fastmarkets will continue to track the evolution and progress of the base metals markets and is committed to increase the frequency of publication of premiums in the future should spot liquidity build up.

The consultation period for these proposed changes will end one month from the date of this pricing notice, on July 8, 2019, with changes taking place, subject to market feedback, from Tuesday July 16, 2019.

Under the new pricing schedule, the first fortnightly premium assessments would be on July 16, and then continue every two weeks on July 30, August 13, August 27, and so forth. The first monthly premiums assessments would be on July 30.

Please note that the proposed changes would mean that the monthly averages for these premiums from July onwards would be based on a reduced number of assessments.

To provide feedback on this proposal or if you would like to provide price information by becoming a data submitter, please contact Global base metals editor Perrine Faye by email at: pricing@fastmarkets.com. Please add the subject heading FAO: Perrine Faye, re: Fastmarkets base metals frequency.

To see all Fastmarkets’ pricing methodology and specification documents go to https://www.metalbulletin.com/prices/pricing-methodology.html.

Moving to fortnightly pricing
Fastmarkets proposes to decrease the frequency of publication of 23 premiums to fortnightly from weekly, with changes mainly affecting tin and zinc prices, as in table below. For the changes in tin premiums, read the separate notice here.

Moving to monthly pricing
In addition, Fastmarkets proposes, as outlined in the below table, to reduce the frequency of publication of three aluminium and copper premiums to monthly from weekly due to even lower transaction liquidity in these markets.