Measures to reduce stainless steel production are expected to become more commonplace as producers try to mitigate against price erosion, amid weak demand. MEPS has reduced its full-year global crude stainless steel production forecast from last quarter by 800,000 tonnes, to 59 million tonnes, after buying activity cooled and prices declined in the latter part of the first quarter. This would represent a 6.8 percent increase on 2022’s output. Producers are now exploring mechanisms that could be employed to rebalance supply and demand, particularly in Europe and Japan. One EU ...

Total quarterly coal production across the United States has held relatively flat since late 2021, but average employment in the sector has grown steadily since the third quarter of 2021, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence data. The number of US coal miners increased 1.3% in the first quarter of 2023 from the prior quarter to an average of 45,473 employees. Coal employment has been rising incrementally since the third quarter of 2021, according to an S&P Global Commodity Insights analysis. Employment growth has primarily occurred in the Eastern US, ...

U.S. corn and soybean futures closed higher on Friday, lifted by bargain-buying following this week’s multi-month lows, dryness in the Midwest crop belt and spillover strength from equities and crude oil, traders said. Wheat followed the firm trend, drawing additional support from weather concerns in China and tensions over a shipping corridor from war-torn Ukraine. Chicago Board of Trade July corn settled up 16-1/2 cents at $6.09 per bushel, pushing through chart resistance at its 50-day moving average near $6.05. CBOT July soybeans SN3 ended up 23 cents at $13.52-1/2 ...

The London Metal Exchange (LME) is once again looking to shine more light on what lies in the shadows of its warehousing system. The exchange’s daily stocks reports offer a rare hard data point in a murky statistical landscape for metal traders. But their usefulness as a market signal has been steadily undermined by the emergence of a shadow LME storage function, which can mean large amounts of previously uncounted metal suddenly “arriving” in a single day. The LME extended its stocks reporting requirements in 2020 to try to capture ...

Poland is expected to soon surpass Germany as Europe’s top power polluter due to aggressive planned reductions in fossil fuel use across Germany and assumptions that Poland will have no choice but remain Europe’s most coal-reliant nation for years to come. But so far in 2023 Poland has defied expectations by cutting coal use and pollution to the lowest since at least 2014, and by raising clean power output to record highs just as Germany cut its clean generation by shutting nuclear reactors. So instead of emerging as a climate ...

Green steel price premiums are likely to be linked to carbon market prices, participants in a webinar on prospects for the green steel market organized by the Brazilian Association of Metallurgy, Materials and Mining (ABM) said May 31. Price premiums paid in the future for green steel products should help finance steelworks’ installations of new technologies to be able to produce that carbon-neutral green steel. However, government financing or subsidies – for instance to help cover the costs of natural gas in Brazil – may still be needed to produce ...

China’s Securities Regulatory Commission has approved the registration of alumina futures on the Shanghai Futures Exchange (SHFE), it said on Friday. The decision opens the door for the exchange to launch the world’s first alumina contract with physical delivery. “The listing of alumina futures will enhance the competitiveness for China’s alumina industry and its price influence and also improve companies’ risk-management abilities,” the SHFE said in a notice. It did not specify when the contract will start trading. China is the world’s top producer and consumer of alumina, which is ...

Malaysian palm oil futures closed higher on Friday for a second straight session, as stronger rival oils and concerns about the impact of El Nino stoked buying interest after heavy losses earlier in the week. The benchmark palm oil contract for August delivery on the Bursa Malaysia Derivatives Exchange gained 111 ringgit, or 3.39%, to 3,390 ringgit ($764.37) a tonne, its highest daily gain in nearly a month. For the week, the contract has declined 5%. The recent strong reversal in prices widened arbitrage trading in destination markets, especially in ...

Aluminium available to the market in London Metal Exchange (LME)approved warehouses fell to near four-month lows after large amounts of inventory were earmarked to leave the LME system, data from the exchange showed. Total stocks of aluminium in LME warehouses stand at 579,025 tonnes. Of that 42% or 243,525 tonnes has been set aside or cancelled for delivering out over coming weeks. LME stock data published with a two-day lag shows fresh cancellation of warrants — documents that confer ownership — of 56,425 tonnes in Port Klang in Malaysia, where ...

Rebar futures closed up 2.84% at 3,546 yuan/mt yesterday. Spot prices also rose. As iron ore price rebound was much stronger than steel price rally, steel mills put pressure on coking plants, causing coke prices to record the tenth round of cuts. Blast furnace steel mills will be more willing to resume production. Market sentiment improved after rebar futures rallied, and trades in spot market also picked up. After bearish sentiment has been digested, rebar prices may go up further in the short term. Yet, rebar prices will remain bearish ...

The condition of French soft wheat declined in the week to May 29, data from farm office FranceAgriMer showed on Friday, suggesting a dry spell was starting to affect some crops. An estimated 91% of soft wheat was rated as being in good or excellent condition, down from 93% the previous week. The score, however, was well above the 67% registered a year earlier. It was also the joint-highest for the time of year over the past decade, tying with 2015, when France went on to harvest a record crop, ...

Dalian iron ore rose on Friday to a six-week peak, while the steelmaking ingredient’s benchmark price in Singapore hit the highest in two weeks, extending a rally spurred by surprise growth in China’s factory activity in May. Iron ore also headed for sharp weekly gains, as market commentators continued to speculate about top steel producer China rolling out additional stimulus to support an uneven and fragile post-COVID economic recovery. The most-traded September iron ore on China’s Dalian Commodity Exchange ended daytime trading 2.9% higher at 745.50 yuan ($107.85) a tonne, ...

The benchmark index of international food commodity prices declined in May amid significant drops in quotations for most cereals, vegetable oils and dairy products, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) reported today. The FAO Food Price Index, which tracks monthly changes in the international prices of commonly-traded food commodities, averaged 124.3 points in May, down 2.6 percent from April and as much as 22.1 percent below the all-time high reached in March 2022. The FAO Cereal Price Index declined 4.8 percent from the previous month, led ...

Ukraine’s combined grain and oilseed crop harvest is set to fall to 68 million tonnes in 2023, from 73.8 million tonnes in 2022, Ukrainian grain traders union UGA said. The grain harvest could include 17.9 million tonnes of wheat and 23.3 million tonnes of corn, the union said. Ukraine harvested 20.2 million tonnes of wheat and 27.3 million tonnes of corn in 2022. UGA said combined exports of grains and oilseeds could total 43.9 million tonnes in the 2023/24 July-June season, against 56.4 million tonnes in 2022/23. It said exports ...

The US flat product market, which is historically vulnerable to peaks and troughs, is set for a downward correction after MEPS sources described current prices as “too high”. The consensus view of market participants, in April, was that further rises taking hot rolled coil prices to above US$1200 per short ton were unlikely to be sustained. Buyers commented that it was inevitable that local values would correct downwards, in line with international trends. Domestic price volatility has been exacerbated by worldwide events in the past few years. The implementation of ...