Shanghai rebar futures recovered from early falls on Friday, extending gains into a third session and marking their biggest weekly jump in seven on concerns about lean supply. The top Chinese steelmaking city of Tangshan ordered steel mills, coke producers and utilities to cut output further from July 20 until Aug. 31, in addition to the 10 percent-15 percent cuts imposed from March to November. Tangshan did not instruct factories on how much output should be reduced, but the market expects sintering production, a process where iron ore is heated ...

Chinese steel market sentiment is generally unchanged in July from the month before, with domestic orders expected to remain stable, though the outlook for export orders has improved, according to the latest S&P Global Platts China Steel Sentiment Index or CSSI, which showed a headline reading of 27.45 out of a possible 100 points. The headline CSSI, which measures the combined outlook for new domestic and export steel orders, fell by 1.79 points from 27.45 in June. It was the third consecutive month the index has been below the 50 ...

What’s next for commodities after a recent price collapse? It looks like more bad news, if the chart watchers are right. The Bloomberg Commodity Index has tumbled about 10 percent from a high in May amid mounting concerns that a trade war could derail global growth, curbing demand for everything from aluminum to soybeans. Even gold, a traditional haven asset, failed to catch a bid as the dollar strengthened and the Federal Reserve signaled more increases in borrowing costs this year, curbing the investment appeal of the non-interest-bearing metal. The ...

India is in talks with the European Union to mitigate the impact of a safeguard duty tariff on steel imports that the EU seeks to impose. The EU’s proposed retaliatory duty comes ahead of the US imposing a 25 per cent import duty on steel imports that will be in effect from August 4. Steel Secretary, Aruna Sharma, told presspersons that India is concerned more about the European Union tariffs as India exports nearly 6 per cent of its domestic steel production to Italy. India’s steel exports to the US ...

Gene editing in agriculture takes center stage next Wednesday when Europe’s highest court rules in a case that could determine the fate of the technology that is already making waves in the field of medicine. The European Union has long restricted the use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) widely adopted around the world, but there is legal uncertainty as to whether modern gene editing of crops should fall under the same strict GMO rules. The European Court of Justice (ECJ) will rule whether the use of genetic mutation, or mutagenesis, ...

Base metals prices won a reprieve from their recent collapse after the dollar sank against the yuan late in Friday’s Asian session. Copper in London rebounded as much as 0.8 percent from the lowest level in a year as the yuan wiped out a steep retreat amid speculation Chinese authorities were seeking to cool its decline. Zinc and nickel rose by more than 1 percent, while copper in Shanghai erased losses to end only slightly lower. Metals have sold-off over the past six weeks on concerns that an escalating trade ...

Sasol Ltd. said full-year profit probably fell as the world’s biggest producer of fuel from coal takes a 16 billion-rand ($1.2 billion) depreciation charge and accounts for expenses on share-based payments. Core headline earnings per share probably declined 1 percent to 11 percent in the year ended June 30 from the 38.47 rand reported 12 months earlier, the Johannesburg-based company said in a statement Friday. Profit was also hit by 1.5 billion rand of employee share-based payment expenses, it said. The stronger rand “resulted in a much lower operating profit ...

Vedanta Ltd would suffer a loss of about $100 million if its Tuticorin copper smelter in southern India continues to remain shut for a year, Chairman Anil Agarwal told television channel ET Now on Friday. The smelter has been shut since May after the Tamil Nadu state government cut power supply to the unit, following violent protests over alleged pollution resulted in the death of 13 people in police firing. Vedanta has sought a permanent injunction against the state government from interfering with the operations of its copper smelter, according ...

Iron ore managed to avoid the carnage seen in other commodity markets on Thursday, recording modest gains across the board. The spot price for benchmark 62% fines rose by one solitary cent to $65.25 a tonne, according to Metal Bulletin, mirroring the resilience seen in Chinese iron ore futures during the session. Lower and higher grades also recorded modest gains. The price of 58% rose by 0.2% to $38.26 a tonne, outpaced by a 0.5% increase in the price for 65% fines which settled at $92.20 a tonne. “Some normalisation ...

South America’s main soybean-producing nations could benefit from higher demand from China through 2020 thanks to a Sino-U.S. trade war, according to one of Uruguay’s largest farm companies. “Uruguay and South America in general have an opportunity as a provider of oilseeds to China, which would stop buying at higher prices from the U.S.,” Jose Pedro Sanchez, chief executive officer of Union Agriculture Group Corp., said in a telephone interview in Montevideo. U.S. soy that otherwise might have gone to China could displace Uruguayan soy in Europe, Sanchez said. In ...

Chicago corn was headed for its biggest weekly gain since late April with the market rising for a fifth consecutive session on Friday on the back of strong demand and dryness in parts of U.S. Midwest. Soybeans were poised for their biggest weekly rise in nearly two months, while wheat rose for a second straight session as dry weather curbs output in Europe and the Black Sea region. For the week, the Chicago Board of Trade most-active corn contract has gained 3.1 percent, the most since the week ended April ...

U.S. aluminum tariffs that were meant to protect the industry from foreign competitors are instead taking a bite out of the earnings of the nation’s largest producer. Alcoa Corp. lowered its 2018 profit projection as tariffs on imported aluminum present what Chief Executive Officer Roy Harvey is calling a “significant” headwind. The manufacturer has been hit with $15 million so far on material it produced mostly in Canada and shipped to the U.S. The company also cited higher energy costs and lower aluminum prices for the cut. The forecast adds ...

Protectionism has been grabbing most headlines in the steel world. And it could refocus eyes on the ferrous market’s biggest driver — China. The EU today announced tariff rate quotas on 23 types of steel in response to existing US Section 232 tariffs. The EU safeguard is based on average import volumes over 2015-17, by product. Anything above average volumes will face a 25pc tariff. The EU imported 22.16mn t of hot-rolled wide strip in 2015-17, according to Eurofer data, which averages out at 7.38mn t/yr. Canada is looking at ...

India’s coal demand rose 7.5 percent to about 900 million tonnes in the year ending March 2018, Coal Minister Piyush Goyal told lawmakers on Wednesday. Coal is expected to remain India’s main energy source for the next three decades, even as the country encourages the use of renewable power generation. State-owned Coal India Ltd has been directed to boost production, Goyal said in a written reply to lawmakers. India, the third world’s biggest greenhouse gas emitter and one of the world’s largest coal producers, depends on coal for about three-fifths ...

Shanghai construction steel rebar futures jumped to a 10-month top on Thursday, climbing more than 1 percent as China’s crackdown on pollution raised concerns over supplies. China’s top steelmaking city Tangshan has extended recent emergency pollution control measures until July 21 because of a possible major smog alert. The most-active rebar contract on the Shanghai Futures Exchange was up 1.4 percent at 3,993 yuan ($593.37) a tonne, as of 0146 GMT. Earlier in the session, the market hit 4,005 yuan a tonne, the highest since Sept. 4. “Investors have been ...