September 22, 2021 – After the Asian Mid Autumn Festival holidays, the data on the Shanghai Futures Exchange (SHFE) look much friendlier today. Nickel, aluminum and stainless steel in the plus. Silicon and magnesium prices sprint away due to partly drastic production cuts in China. Global recovery: OECD with positive outlook. And in the Netherlands, questions are being asked about how the EU Green Deal can be realistically implemented.
Friendly figures at the SHFE
After the slight distortions on the stock markets due to the Evergrande crisis in China, the numbers have developed friendly after the end of the Asian Mid Autumn Festival on the SHFE today.
Figures, data, facts: Stainless steel and aluminum pick up
In addition, spot prices in the Chinese stainless steel market are up between $100 to $270 per ton. Stainless steel futures are up nearly 3%. Nickel futures on the SHFE are moving sideways today without any significant trend. On the LME, however, nickel values are currently up more than 1.5%. Aluminum futures had shown stable and unimpressed by other trends in recent days. Today, aluminum values so far SHFE and LME have risen by more than 2.3%.
Source: shfe.com.cn, lme.com
Silicon and magnesium sprint away
Prices for silicone and magnesium sprinted in China today. For silicone, it went up on the Chinese spot market by more than 28% in some cases and for magnesium by more than 41%. Background is the request to 15 magnesium manufacturers in Shanxi to stop production and to 30 other Chinese manufacturers to reduce production by at least 50%. Similar reports come from the silicone producing regions of Guangxi, Ningxia and Yunnan.
China most important global producer of silicone and magnesium
Almost 7 million tons of silicone are produced per year, of which about 65% are produced in China. The Chinese share of magnesium production is even more dramatic. Here, China accounts for 80% of the global production volume. Magnesium and silicone are important additives for certain aluminum alloys. In addition, silicone is an important component of electrical steel, which is used, for example, as an important component in wind turbines.
OECD: Global economic recovery continues
Even if the global economy is not yet running perfectly smoothly everywhere, the OECD is looking positively to the future. In its recently published Economic Outlook Interim Report 2021, the OECD forecasts global economic growth of 5.7% this year and 4.5% in 2022. In addition, it sees a clear need to catch up in countries that came out of the pandemic late or not yet.
EU Green Deal: More and more critical voices about its feasibility
More and more critical voices are being raised that see problems in the feasibility of the Fit for 55 and Green Deal plans of the European Commission. This time, for example, from the Netherlands, where a steel producer has put its carbon capture plans on hold and announced a complete shift to green hydrogen. There, one wonders, among other things, where at least 15 GW of additional offshore wind energy will come from in the next 8 years, when the Netherlands can currently produce just 2.5 GW offshore.
Learn more about EU Green Steel and CBAM here.
Read also:
- Stainless Espresso: Evergrande, U.S. monetary policy and the steel price
- Stainless Espresso: Italy wants EU to suspend steel tariffs?
- Stainless Espresso: Your Ego Is Your Biggest Enemy
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