[Pb Ingot] Lead Shipments from Shanghai Recover after Storm

The EU Commission's 44th Trade Defence Report, published September 17, 2026, highlighted 32 new investigations and 232 active measures, but made no mention of two WTO panel defeats in 2025. One is directly relevant to stainless steel: in October 2025, a WTO dispute settlement panel rejected the core legal construction behind the EU's countervailing duties on Indonesian cold-rolled stainless steel, specifically the attribution of Chinese financing as an Indonesian subsidy. The Commission appealed the ruling to the Appellate Body — which has been dysfunctional since 2020 — a manoeuvre Brussels routinely criticizes other trading partners for using to obstruct the rules-based order. The stainless steel case appears in the report only because Egypt raised it in the WTO Committee; the outcome itself goes unmentioned.

The European Commission issued a Statement of Objections regarding MMG's proposed acquisition of Anglo American's Brazilian nickel operations, a move welcomed by EUROFER. Director General Axel Eggert stated that any transaction affecting strategic raw materials should strengthen competition, security of supply, and Europe's industrial autonomy rather than create new dependencies. EUROFER warned that further concentration in strategic raw material supply could increase suppliers' pricing power and reduce purchasing options for European stainless steel producers, who rely on competitively priced, low-carbon ferronickel to meet decarbonization requirements. The association also pointed to Indonesia's nickel ore export ban as a precedent for supply chain disruption, arguing that further consolidation of Brazilian nickel supply warrants careful scrutiny. EUROFER called for robust, lasting structural, governance, or ownership-based safeguards — rather than solely contractual commitments — to preserve direct and competitive access for European stainless steel producers to the Anglo American Brazilian assets.

L'enquête antidumping menée par Taïwan (PoC) sur l'acier inoxydable laminé à froid vietnamien a mis en évidence une profonde division au sein de l'industrie. Les requérants Yusco et Tang Eng Iron Works soutiennent que la forte hausse des importations vietnamiennes et la baisse des prix ont causé 2,8 milliards de dollars taïwanais de pertes nationales l'an dernier et réduit le taux d'utilisation des capacités à 50 %. Les représentants des producteurs vietnamiens rétorquent que la part de marché des importations reste d'environ 8 % et que la baisse des prix reflète les tendances du marché régional plutôt qu'un dumping intentionnel. Il est à noter que les transformateurs locaux en aval Yuan Long et Tung Mung se sont opposés à l'enquête, reprochant aux producteurs en amont d'importer des produits semi-finis laminés à chaud à bas coût depuis l'Indonésie tout en cherchant à bloquer les sources étrangères de produits laminés à froid, et avertissant qu'une marge de dumping de 31,36 % réduirait la compétitivité à l'exportation et créerait des risques pour la chaîne d'approvisionnement.