Global billet prices have shown mixed dynamics over the past week, as an uptick in Turkish scrap prices dragged up CIS and Turkish billet prices, while Southeast Asian and UAE billet prices were down due to poor sentiment.

China’s major mills lowered their crude steel output rates further in late October even as finished steel inventories continued to decrease.

The latest news and price moves to start the Asian day on Wednesday August 22.

Chinese industrial profits were down by 14% in January-February compared with a year ago, marking the biggest fall since 2011. The data paints a worrying picture while the negative economic impact from China’s deleveraging activities in 2018, as well the bitter US-China trade war, continue to take a heavy toll on major industrial sectors.

The latest news and price moves to start the Asian day on Tuesday December 11.

Posco has announced that it would pay 241.42 billion Won ($218.58 million) for all the shares of Posco SS-Vina, a 1-million-tpy integrated special long steel plant that is close to commissioning in Vietnam.

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.

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.

Metal Bulletin looks at six key things, discussed in the Philippines last month at SEAISI's 2017 Asean Iron and Steel Sustainability Forum in Manila, that will impact the Asian steel sector over the next five years.

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.