Commodity pricing agency Argus Media has acquired French consultancy Agritel to expand into agricultural markets, the companies said on Monday. They did not disclose the terms of the deal, but said in a statement that Agritel’s staff and management will remain in place. Agritel is headed by Michel Portier, who founded the firm in 2001 to offer information and risk management services for farmers and agri-business companies. It covers crops such as cereals and sugar, along with other agricultural markets, including livestock. It has expanded outside France in recent years, ...

Iron ore futures slipped on Monday as rising port inventories of the steelmaking ingredient in China helped soothe worries over global supply tightness that have kept spot prices supported at above $100 a tonne for more than a month now. Iron ore on the Dalian Commodity Exchange fell as much as 0.5% to 740 yuan ($104.90) a tonne, while the Singapore Exchange’s most-active contract dropped 0.9% to $95.64. The Dalian contract gained 29% in the first half of 2020, buoyed largely in the second quarter when demand rebounded after China ...

A strike at Coal India Ltd cut production by 56% in the three days ending July 4 as workers oppose opening up coal mining to the private sector, a senior company official told Reuters. The world’s largest coal miner’s production fell to 573,000 tonnes per day over the three days, compared with a June average output of 1.29 million tonnes per day. Offtake by customers, such as power generators, fell nearly 62% to an average of about 536,000 tonnes per day, the official said. “The production was higher than what ...

China’s steel production remained at record high levels in late June, on track for a new record high of monthly output. The China Iron and Steel Association (CISA) reported Saturday that crude steel output across major mills in China averaged 2.14 million mt per day in the last 10 days of June, barely changed from the record high level seen in the middle of June. Daily crude steel output for the full month of June came in at 2.13 million mt, up 2.74% from May and 4.03% from the same ...

Wind, solar, electric vehicles, stationary storage and transmission are all central to achieving the Paris Agreement decarbonisation goals. Miners are obligated to deliver supply growth to satisfy demand from the necessary energy transition needed to meet these goals. At the same time, the industry needs to decarbonise. Global emissions must reach net-zero by the second half of the century to keep global temperature rises below 2°C. Emissions from metals production will need to halve over the next 20 years in order to hit this target, according to Wood Mackenzie. Under ...

Malaysia’s palm oil inventories in June likely fell about 5% from May as a recovery in demand from key importers due to the easing of coronavirus-fuelled curbs lifted exports to a 10-month high. June-end stocks in the world’s second-largest producer were seen at 1.94 million tonnes, according to the median estimate of nine planters, traders and analysts polled by Reuters. Output was seen up 8% at 1.78 million tonnes, the highest since October. Exports outpaced production as major buyers India, China and the European Union replenished stocks after months-long lockdown, ...

Iron ore futures closed higher on Monday in daytime trading at the Dalian Commodity Exchange (DCE). The most active iron ore contract for September 2020 delivery gained 6.5 yuan (92 U.S. cents) to close at 750.5 yuan per tonne. On Monday, the total trading volume of 11 listed iron ore futures contracts on the exchange was 1.09 million lots, with a turnover of 80.5 billion yuan. As the world’s largest importer of iron ore, China opened the DCE iron ore futures to international investors in May 2018. Source: Xinhua

The coronavirus pandemic has obliterated global metals demand as one of the main end uses, automotive applications, has seen major disruptions to the supply chain. The US metals market, in particular, saw the removal of an estimated 33,000 vehicles per day from production as all major auto producers across the country halted operations in response to government mandates and concerns over the welfare of workers. Because the transportation sector is the largest end user of aluminum, accounting for around 35% of aluminum consumption, it is easy to see why so ...

A stunning V-shaped recovery in the price of copper is looking stretched as top consumer China enters its summer construction slowdown and fears of supply disruptions from the coronavirus have been mostly priced into the market. Benchmark three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange leapt 21% in the second quarter – its best quarter in a decade – on a strong post-virus recovery in China, fears of supply upsets, a weaker U.S. dollar and massive global stimulus. The metal used in everything from construction to consumer goods has now recovered ...

European stainless steel prices continued to fall, despite rises in regional mills’ published alloy surcharges, in June. The majority of distributors and stockists now negotiate deals with the stainless steel producers using an ‘effective price’, rather than the traditional ‘basis plus alloy surcharge’ mechanism. Costs for stainless steel raw material ingredients are expected to rise, moderately, in the medium term. However, in the current market climate, where demand is substantially lower than pre-Covid-19 levels, European stainless steel producers are finding it increasingly difficult to pass on rises in raw material ...

U.S. soybeans rose more than 1% on Monday, as concerns about hot and dry weather in a key growing region in the United States pushed prices to a more than a four-month high. Corn rose 1.5%, recouping all the losses from the previous session, while wheat firmed nearly 1%. The most active soybean futures on the Chicago Board Of Trade hit their highest since March 5 at $9.06-3/4 a bushel and were last up 1% at $9.08-1/2 a bushel. Soybeans fell 0.3% in the previous session. Traders said soybeans were ...

Global iron ore production is expected to decline by 1.2% in 2020 to 2,230.8 million tonnes (Mt) as the leading producers are affected by a range of factors including weather-related disruptions, auction adjournments and mine closures due to COVID-19, says GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company. In Australia, which is the world’s largest producer of iron ore, production is forecast to increase by just 0.9%. The growth is being limited by the impact of cyclone Damien. The extensive damage caused by the cyclone to Rio Tinto’s rail, road and ...

China’s major steel companies saw their profitability improve in May as demand picked up, the latest data showed. Profits surged by 81.8 percent month on month to 14.8 billion yuan (about 2.1 billion U.S. dollars) in May. Sales rose by 6.5 percent from a month earlier to 374 billion yuan, according to data from the China Iron and Steel Association. During the first five months, profits of the country’s major steel mills reached 41.9 billion yuan, down by 50.9 percent year on year. Steel production maintained steady growth from January ...

Since lockdown measures to contain Covid-19 around the world have eased, ratings and research agency Standard & Poor’s Global (S&P Global) says the reopening of economies, combined with monetary stimulus by banks and governments, has allowed industrial metal prices to rise. However, even though industrial metal prices have risen from the lows experienced in the first quarter of the year, there remains a possibility of a second wave of Covid-19 infections as lockdowns are eased. “It nevertheless remains a significant downside risk to industrial metal prices for the rest of ...

Global coal prices will remain under pressure until the end of the year amid a persisting glut in supply and weak demand from China and India, analysts said. “The market is currently oversupplied. Production, in particular in Indonesia and Australia, remains strong, but the demand is declining,” Hendra Sinadia, head of the Indonesian Coal Producers Association, told a Indonesian coal-industry webinar. “This could make the coal price to continue its downtrend until the end of the year,” he said. Already, the Global Coal Newcastle index – a benchmark for Asia-Pacific ...