China’s steel and iron ore futures rose on Monday after last week recording their worst weekly performance in several months, buoyed after Beijing said it would maintain policy support for the economy. A top decision-making body of the Communist Party on Friday said that support would come as China’s economy still faces “downward pressure” and difficulties despite better-than-expected first quarter growth. The world’s second-largest economy last week reported first quarter growth at 6.4 percent as industrial production jumped sharply and consumer demand showed signs of improvement. More economic stimulus policies ...

The World Steel Association expects global steel demand growth to stabilize over the long-term at a compound annual growth rate of around 1%, now that Chinese steel demand has peaked, worldsteel Director General Edwin Basson said. “Overall we see positive growth, shifting more to developing nations,” Basson told reporters in London. “Structurally steel is a very robust market … we don’t see much to shift it from [current demand levels of] 1.7 billion mt/year,” he said. Slow and steady growth will bring overall steel usage levels up to around 2 ...

China Taiyuan coal transaction price index stood at 140.03 points Monday, down 0.28 percent week on week. The index, released by China Taiyuan Coal Transaction Center (CTCTC) based in Shanxi, a coal-rich province, reflects the coal price levels and changes in the main production areas of China. It is published every Monday. Analysts said that the purchase demand of China’s main power plants had decreased over the past week and the transaction of power coal in northern ports fell short of expectation, which caused coal enterprises in Shanxi to have ...

French farmers are expected to cut sharply their sowings of sugar beet and rapeseed for this year’s harvest while increasing the area for soft wheat and barley, the country’s farm ministry said on Tuesday. In its first estimate of the 2019 sugar beet area, the ministry pegged sowings at 455,000 hectares, down 6.3 percent from 2018. A smaller sugar beet area has been anticipated in France and other European Union countries as growers and sugar companies react to a price slump that followed the end of EU production quotas 18 ...

Chicago wheat lost ground on Monday after finishing the last two weeks lower, as the market faced pressure from abundant world supplies and an outlook for a bumper northern hemisphere crop. Soybeans rose for a second session although gains were checked by higher production in South America. FUNDAMENTALS * The wheat market is being weighed down by amply supplied world market. Wheat production in top exporters Russia and the United States is expected to be above average with crops benefiting from friendly weather. * U.S. soybean inventories have swelled as ...

Brazilian miner Vale SA estimated selling up to 75 million tonnes less iron ore and pellets this year, after several mines were halted following its second deadly dam burst in less than four years. The estimate, which is 20 percent below its prior forecast, is the latest blow to Vale from the collapse at Brumadinho, which killed some 300 people and forced the world’s largest iron ore exporter to fire its chief executive officer earlier this month. Chief Financial Officer Luciano Siani said in a call with analysts that under ...

The major steel city of Tangshan in north China’s Hebei Province has kicked off a campaign to relocate and upgrade 13 steel and iron mills in a bid to reduce pollution and energy consumption. The 13 mills near the main urban areas of Tangshan have a total production capacity of 51.4 million tonnes, said Lang Wenchang, deputy director of the city’s development and reform commission, on Sunday. The 13 firms will be relocated to coastal industrial parks in Laoting and Fengnan in Tangshan, said Lang. The major steel base in ...

Metals and mining conglomerate Vedanta Ltd saw its iron ore sales fall by 50% in FY19 due to lower production and sales volume in Goa. Vedanta achieved 3.8 million tonnes (mt) in iron ore sales in FY19, down 7.6 mt in the preceding fiscal. In Goa, where iron ore production and sales suffered on account of mines closure pursuant to a Supreme Court order, iron ore sales plummeted 77 per cent. “In Goa, production and sales volume were lower compared to previous periods due to mine closure pursuant to the ...

Goa Chief Minister Pramod Sawant Thursday assured to resolve the crisis in the iron ore mining industry in the state within six months. Talking to reporters, Sawant said since he hails from the mining belt he is well versed with the issue and problems being faced by people dependent on the sector. Iron ore mining and transportation operations came to a standstill in the state after the Supreme Court quashed 88 leases in February last year. The SC had quashed the second renewal of iron ore mining leases given to ...

The London Metal Exchange is poised to deal with a loophole in its warehousing rules, exposed after commodity trader Glencore bought large amounts of aluminium earlier this year, sources familiar with the matter said. But the exchange will have to wait until a complaint lodged by Glencore with the LME on its inability to take fast delivery of the aluminium from warehouses owned by ISTIM UK in Port Klang, Malaysia has been resolved, sources said. A problem has emerged in relation to the LME’s “load-in and load-out” rules – otherwise ...

China will restrict new coal-fired power projects in eight regions across the country to further reduce air pollution and ease oversupply in those areas. The coal-mining heartlands of Shanxi, Shandong and eastern-Inner Mongolia, as well as Heilongjiang, Jilin, Gansu, Ningxia and Xinjiang, regions that also have plenty of solar and wind resources, will not be allowed to approve new coal-fired power projects, according to a statement issued by China’s National Energy Administration on Friday. Projects built to transmit power to other regions that have power deficits will still be allowed, ...

A casual observer might have thought the past couple of weeks haven’t been good for our iron ore miners. They’d be wrong. The sector has been hit by a spate of adverse events, most notably the collapse of another of Vale’s tailings dams at Brumadinho in Brazil. That led to the shutting in of more than 80 million tonnes of annual production at mines that used similar dams to the one that collapsed. More recently, Rio Tinto disclosed that Cyclone Veronica and a fire at its Cape Lambert port facility ...

Tokyo Steel Manufacturing Co Ltd , Japan’s top electric-arc furnace steelmaker, said on Monday it would keep its steel product prices steady in May due to delays in some construction projects and higher local inventories. This is the fifth straight month the company kept prices unchanged for all of its steel products, including its main H-shaped beams. For May, prices of steel bars, including rebar, will remain at 69,000 yen ($617) a tonne, while H-shaped beams will also stay at 89,000 yen a tonne. “Local flow of steel products have ...

China’s grain output is expected to remain stable this year, according to a report released. The total sown area of rice, wheat and corn will stay around 95.87 million hectares, while that for soybeans is expected to increase by about 666,666 hectares, according to the report released at the 2019 China Agricultural Outlook Conference sponsored by the Agricultural Information Institute under the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences. The report forecast farm produce prices to keep steady overall, but predicted greater risks of market fluctuations for certain types of products, including ...

China’s iron ore futures extended losses on Thursday as market sentiment remained bearish about a rise in near-term supply after Brazil’s Vale SA said it was set to reopen an iron ore mine. The most-active iron ore contract for September delivery on the Dalian Commodity Exchange closed 0.9 percent lower at 620 yuan ($92.59) a tonne, adding to a 3 pct fall in the previous session. Vale said on Tuesday that it expects to resume operations at the Brucutu mine, which has annual capacity of 30 million tonnes, within 72 ...