The Trump administration has collected more than $775 million so far from its metal import tariffs, as lawmakers from both parties blasted the duties and said the process for requests by companies for exclusions must improve. The tariffs President Donald Trump imposed in March have generated $582 million from steel imports and $195 million from aluminum as of last week, and the combined total is expected to top $1 billion within the next six weeks, according to the Commerce Department. While Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross defended the tariffs at a ...

U.S. wheat futures eased on Thursday after gaining in the previous session on fears that dry weather could hit production in top exporters Russia and Australia. Soybeans, which hit a near 10-year low on Tuesday, extended the slide as U.S.-China trade worries continued to weigh. The most-active wheat contract on the Chicago Board of Trade gave up 1.1 percent to $4.93-3/4 a bushel by 0516 GMT after rising more than 2 percent in the last session. Soybeans fell 0.9 percent to $8.81/3/4 a bushel while corn eased 1 percent to ...

The monthly S&P Global Platts steel sentiment survey found German steel buyers were in a wait-and-see mode, with the index for inventories on a slight downward trend this month. Stockholders and traders said they would keep stocks stable, but end-users expected their inventories to fall. Stockholders in particular said uncertainty over the import market and price developments due to recent trade disputes would keep them on the sidelines. Sources said they had mostly reduced orders to hand-to-mouth buying. The latest data from German stockholders association BDS showed inventory volumes of ...

The prospect of an additional 25pc import tariff being imposed on US coal as a result of worsening trade tensions between Washington and Beijing has led Chinese steelmakers to start reassessing plans to increase purchases of US coking coal. The reversal comes less than two weeks after China’s main economic planning agency the NDRC started considering easing restrictions on US coal imports to China, including eliminating the existing 3pc import tax. US coking coal producers revived exports to China in 2017, shipping 2.8mn t, after the trade had been dormant ...

Steel and iron ore futures in China extended losses on Wednesday, still pressured by worries over a widening trade spat between Beijing and Washington, although losses were more modest compared with the previous session’s slide. Slower construction demand in China, the world’s top steel consumer and producer, also weighed on steel prices, with iron ore futures trading near a two-month low. The most-active October rebar on the Shanghai Futures Exchange was down 0.3 percent at 3,786 yuan ($585) a tonne by midday break, after sliding 2.9 percent on Tuesday. The ...

Morocco’s soft wheat is forecast to total 4.8 million tonnes in 2018/19, Mostafa Chari, Executive Assistant, Moroccan Cereals and Pulses Office (ONICL) said on Tuesday. Chari told the International Grains Council’s annual conference that the North African country would also produce 2.3 million tonnes of durum wheat, putting the total wheat crop at 7.1 million tonnes. Total wheat production was little changed from the prior season when the soft wheat crop was at 4.89 million and durum wheat at 2.2 million, he said. The forecast crop would, however, be sharply ...

President Donald Trump’s steel import tariffs have offended the free-trade instincts of many fellow Republicans, but on northern Minnesota’s traditionally Democratic Iron Range he’s hoping they’ll pay political dividends. Trump is scheduled to arrive in northern Minnesota Wednesday evening for a campaign-style rally in the Lake Superior port city of Duluth, aiming to bolster Republican efforts to hold control of the U.S. House in the November election as well as his own bid for re-election two years from now. The hardscrabble region has a long history of boom-and-bust economies and ...

Iranian steelmakers produced a total of 7.66 million tons of semi-finished and finished steel products during the first two months of the current fiscal year (started March 21), registering a 13% growth compared with last year’s corresponding period. Semis made up 4.25 million tons of the total figure, registering a 21% growth YOY. Billet and bloom output made up 2.23 million tons of the total figure while that of slab reached 2.02 million tons, recording a 30% and 12% year-on-year rise respectively. As for finished steel, output increased 5% YOY ...

Coal will be increasingly squeezed out of the power generation market over the next three decades as the cost of renewables plunges and technology improves the flexibility of grids globally. That’s the conclusion of a report by Bloomberg New Energy Finance, which estimated some $11.5 trillion of investment will go into electricity generation between now and 2050. Of that, 85 percent, or $9.8 billion, will go into wind, solar and other zero-emissions technologies such as hydro and nuclear, the London-based researcher said. Better batteries, which allow grid managers to store ...

Embattled commodities trader Noble Group is set to embark on a $3.4 billion debt restructure that it sees as crucial to its survival after winning over a key shareholder with a sweetened equity offer. Noble’s shares surged as much as 57 percent following a two-day trading halt after it said Abu Dhabi-based Goldilocks Investment Co Ltd would support the revised proposal. The deal is critical for a company that has already sold billions of dollars of assets, taken hefty writedowns and cut hundreds of jobs over the past three years. ...

China will shut down small-scale “scattered” coal burning in the heavily coal-dependent provinces of Shanxi and Shaanxi by 2020 in the next stage of its war on pollution, a senior environmental official said at a briefing on Wednesday. Zhao Yingmin, vice-minister of ecology and environment, told reporters that the two northern provinces have been chosen as a key target in the country’s anti-smog efforts over the 2018-2020 period. Around 90 percent of the two provinces’ energy needs are met by coal, and emissions of hazardous breathable particles known as PM2.5 ...

China spent 22.2 billion yuan ($3.43 billion) last year on resettling 377,000 workers laid off as a result of a state campaign to cut capacity in the steel and coal sectors, the finance minister told the country’s parliament on Wednesday. China said in 2016 it would shed 100-150 million tonnes of annual crude steel production and 500 million tonnes of coal capacity in three to five years as it tried to tackle price-sapping supply gluts in the two sectors. To allay unemployment fears, China also made a $15 billion special ...

Major U.S. energy companies including Plains All American Pipeline (PAA.N), Hess Corp (HES.N) and Kinder Morgan Inc (KMI.N) are among many seeking exemptions from steel-import tariffs as the United States ratchets up trade tensions with exporters including China, Canada and Mexico. There have been nearly 21,000 requests overall for exclusions submitted to the U.S. Commerce Department since the Trump administration imposed levies this year. Of those, more than 500 petitions involve pipes and related materials. Initial decisions are expected this month, offering the first clues as to how the administration ...

The gloom is mounting in the grain markets amid rising anxiety about the impact of the escalating trade dispute between the U.S. and China. Agricultural futures sank Tuesday, led by a plunge in soybeans, after China vowed to retaliate “forcefully” against President Donald Trump’s threatened tariffs on another $200 billion in Chinese imports. The Asian nation said last week it will follow through on plans to levy tariffs against a slew of American farm goods, which have been a focus of the disagreement between the two countries. “The trade is ...

Chicago soybean futures lost ground for a second day on Wednesday after hitting their lowest in almost a decade in the last session with prices pressured by escalating U.S.-China trade war. Corn slid for a sixth session, while wheat was unmoved after dropping to its lowest since late April on Tuesday. FUNDAMENTALS * Soybeans came under pressure after U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to impose a 10 percent tariff on another $200 billion of Chinese goods. China’s commerce ministry described the threat as “blackmailing” and said Beijing would fight back. ...