Tsingshan’s stainless steel mill in south China’s Fujian province has just made another large purchase of high-grade nickel pig iron (NPI), bringing its cumulative procurement for this month to 100,000 mt which is estimated to secure its production until at least July.

SHFE base metals closed mixed on Wednesday, as the historic oil price plunge continued.

Spot nickel trades in east China’s Shanghai were brisk on Wednesday morning, as Shanghai nickel futures suffered a second straight day of steep losses amid a relentless plunge in oil prices.

SHFE nonferrous metals closed higher across the board on Friday, as fresh optimism over the coronavirus pandemic helped investors shrug off dismal economic data. Aluminium extended its rally, advancing 3.2% on the day to the biggest gainer, and registered its best week since August 2017. Nickel surged 2.7%, tin jumped 2.1%, copper climbed 1.9%, zinc rose 1.3%, and lead increased 0.5%.

SHFE nonferrous metals fell for the most part on Thursday morning, giving up gains from early this week, as record drops in the US retail sales and industrial production intensified investors fears about the damage caused by the coronavirus lockdowns. 

Copper added 1.5% on the day to lead the gains, tin rose 1.2%, zinc and lead climbed more than 0.9%, while aluminium dipped less than 0.1% and nickel fell 0.7%.

SHFE base metals drifted mostly higher in early morning trade on Friday, after OPEC and its allies, known as OPEC+, on Thursday agreed to historic production cuts that will take 10 million barrels per day offline. Tin jumped more than 3% at one point, tracking Thursday’s substantial gains in its LME counterpart.

SHFE nonferrous metals closed mostly higher on Thursday, as investors were eyeing an OPEC+ meeting at which a massive oil production cut is expected to be agreed. Tin jumped 1.5% on the day to lead the gains, nickel rose 0.9%, aluminium advanced 0.7% and copper gained 0.4%, while lead fell 0.5% and zinc declined 0.8%.

The global widespread of COVID-19 has forced many countries to enforce stringent containment measures which result in a heavy impact on global economic activity. Over the past few months, we saw serious disruption of manpower, transportation and production in China. We are now seeing these scenarios happening around the world.

China’s copper cathode output in March increased even as secondary copper production continued to contract due to the unfavourable price spread between copper cathode and copper scrap, in addition to copper scrap supply issues. The global outbreak of COVID-19 took a toll on copper scrap supply from Malaysia.