The London Metal Exchange will introduce three regional hot-rolled coil contracts at the start of 2019, coinciding with a change in attitude towards risk management tools for the ferrous sector, according to the exchange’s business development manager.

The safeguard investigation by the European Commission (EC) into steel product imports is likely to result in quotas being applied instead of tariffs, according to the International Rebar Producers & Exporters Association (Irepas).

The long steel industry in Brazil is marked by fierce competition, but the rivalry among local mills seems to be increasing.

As competition in the global steel markets remains fierce, Metal Bulletin provides an update on the new, progressing and closed trade cases from around the world in November 2017.

Fastmarkets has discontinued its weekly price assessments for long and flat steel products in southern China.

China’s winter steel production cuts are expected to provide some much-needed support to Asian steel prices, according to market sources.

The price spread between higher and lower grades of iron ore continued to widen in 2017, mainly as a result of Chinese’s steelmakers’ growing profit margins.

The growth of demand has been the key factor influencing the positive trend in the global steel market in recent years, Fastmarkets research manager Alistair Ramsay said earlier this month at the 22nd Middle East Iron and Steel Conference in Dubai.

The knock-on effect of Section 232 tariffs imposed by the United States in March this year on imports of steel and aluminium has been swift and dramatic.

Sentiment in the CIS billet export market improved on Thursday June 7 after the resumption in scrap and rebar trading between Turkey and the United States earlier in the week.