The fruits of Marius Kloppers’ crusade for shorter-term prices for iron ore were clear in BHP Billiton’s first-half results published last week. The group’s underlying profits were up 59.7% year-on-year at $17.3 billion for the second half of 2010, but iron ore ebit was up 178%. Iron ore’s share of earnings rose from below one quarter to nearly 40% of earnings, as BHP shifted nearly all sales to more lucrative index-linked or spot prices.

China’s daily crude steel output hit a new high in mid-April, continuing the rebound in the first ten days of the month.

Base metals prices on the London Metal Exchange are for the most part stronger this morning, Monday October 16. Nickel prices are little changed, while the rest are up by an average of 0.9% – led by a 1.9% gain in copper prices to $7,025 per tonne.

Base metals prices on the London Metal Exchange are once again down across the board, with average losses of 0.3% this morning, Friday September 29. Volume has been average with 5,910 lots traded as of 06:42 BST.

Turkey’s steel mills continued their deep-sea purchases for June this week with prices showing a slight decrease, while Taiwanese import and US export prices were holding stable.

Base metals prices on the London Metal Exchange are for the most part weaker this morning, Tuesday September 19. The exceptions are aluminium and copper prices that are up by 0.6% and 0.1%, respectively, with the latter at $6,537 per tonne. The rest of the complex are off between 0.3% for zinc prices and 0.9% for nickel prices. Volume has been above average with 8,054 lots traded as of 06:27 BST.

Base metals prices on the London Metal Exchange are split this morning, Thursday November 30, with copper, aluminium and lead prices up between 0.2% and 0.4%, with copper at $6,760 per tonne, while the rest are weaker with nickel, zinc and tin prices down by 1%, 0.5% and 0.4% respectively.

Base metals prices on the London Metal Exchange are consolidating this morning, Wednesday November 29, with prices ranged between down 0.2% for tin and zinc and up 0.3% for copper, which is at $6,827 per tonne. Volume has been lower than of late with 7,660 lots traded as of 07.02am London time.

Profits of member mills of the China Iron & Steel Assn (Cisa) rose in May, as the drop in iron ore costs outpaced those of finished steel products.

Editor Vera Blei looks at the main news covered by Steel First over the past week.