About 1.2 million mt of manganese ore production in South Africa is expected to be affected by the 21-day nationwide lockdown aimed at containing the coronavirus, a local trader estimates. President Cyril Ramaphosa announced the three-week lockdown on Monday March 23, including closing mines, starting from midnight Thursday March 26.

China’s crude steel production increased 5% year on year to 74.8 million mt in February, according to calculations by the World Steel Association (Worldsteel) based on a China Iron and Steel Association (CISA) production estimate.

China’s production of primary aluminium in the January-to-February period rose 2.4% year on year to 5.85 million mt, according to data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) released on Monday. NBS data also showed that China's production of 10 nonferrous metals, including copper, aluminium, lead, zinc and nickel, totaled 9.35 million mt in the first two months of 2020, up 2.2% from the same period last year.

Prices of spot manganese have not received significant support from the resumption of downstream demand and have extended their slide this week. SMM expects the prices will remain weak with pressure from elevated inventories of #200 cold- and hot- rolled stainless steel.

SMM data showed that China produced 683,100 mt of copper cathode last month, down 5.9% from January and 5.07% from February 2019.

Last year, Baowu generated 556.6 billion yuan in revenue and saw profits grow 690,000 million yuan from 2018 to 34.52 billion yuan, according to the company’s report.

China’s crude steel production increased 7.2% year on year to 84.3 million mt in January, barely changed from December

Daily output of electrolytic manganese across the region is expected to recover to 100-200 mt in the early stage of the resumption

China produced 2.09 million mt of stainless steel in January, down 13.06% from a month ago but up 4.8% from a year ago

SMM estimates a further decline of nearly 20,000 mt in primary lead output in China this month