This morning in metals news:
Novelis announced the commercial availability of a new class of high-strength automotive aluminum; meanwhile, the United States Geological Survey updated its Mineral Deposit Database for niobium; and the global aluminum market surplus more than tripled from 2019 to 2020.
Novelis announces new high-strength automotive aluminum
The product, Novelis Advanz
TM 7UHS-s701, offers “lightweighting potential of up to 40% over existing ultra-high strength, hot-formed steel solutions.”
“The s701 technology represents the future of high-strength material in automotive applications and offers a clear alternative to the most advanced high-strength steel products,” said Philippe Meyer, senior vice president and chief technology officer at Novelis. “Aluminum is already the material of choice for lightweighting, and now we are offering a solution that helps automakers design even safer, lighter and better performing vehicles.”
ungvar/Adobe Stock
This morning in metals news: privately owned housing starts in the U.S. ticked up by 5.8%, according to the Census Bureau; new COVID-19 lockdown restrictions are impacting China’s major steel-producing region; and the primary aluminum market posted a surplus through the first 11 months of 2020.
Housing starts jump in December
Privately owned housing starts in the U.S. reached a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.67 million December, the Census Bureau reported today.
The figure marked a 5.8% increase from November.
Furthermore, the Census Bureau estimated a total of 1.38 million housing starts in 2020, a 7.0% year-over-year increase.
Meanwhile, single-family housing starts in December rose 12.0% to a rate of 1.34 million. In addition, the December rate for units in buildings with five units or more reached 312,000.
Annual zinc premiums for Europe fall on wavering demand, weaker dollar Annual zinc ingot supply contracts in Northern Europe and Italy have been negotiated for 2021 at markedly lower premiums than in previous years. Deals for 2021 contracts have been reached with premiums on a duty-paid fca basis via Antwerp and Rotterdam at $95-110 per tonne level, sources told Fastmarkets, while some market participants said that anything above $105 per tonne was “unachievable” during negotiations.
Premiums have been dropping steadily since 2018.
In 2020, annual contract terms were agreed with premiums at $115-120 per tonne, down from the previous year when they had been agreed upward of $130 in Northern Europe. Before that, levels over $140 per tonne were commonplace.