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Declines in new orders, inventories and employment helped drive the November manufacturing purchasing managers index (PMI) down 2.2 percentage points compared with the previous month, according to the Institute for Supply Management (ISM).
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Lead market sources say that some 2013 contracts have been finalized using a "cost-plus" pricing model, although one trader is adamant that no major business has been done and says that producers and consumers are still "butting heads."
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Corporacion Nacional del Cobre de Chile (Codelco) customers in Asia are more cautious in negotiations for 2013 copper contracts than they were a year ago, according to chief executive officer Thomas Keller.
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The United States has rejected China’s request to set up a dispute settlement panel at the World Trade Organization (WTO) over alleged illegal subsidy duties to nonmarket economies.
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Discussions over next year’s ferroalloys contracts are entering the final stretch, with long-term agreements for some material already largely concluded.
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Noranda Alumina LLC has received a notice from the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) regarding potential safety violations at its Gramercy facility in St. James County, La.
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Taigang Stainless Steel Group Co. Ltd., China’s largest stainless producer, has increased its December-delivery high-carbon ferrochrome purchase price.
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In the final results of an anti-dumping duty administrative review of imports of pure magnesium in granular form from China from Nov. 1, 2010, to Oct. 31, 2011, the Commerce Department’s International Trade Administration (ITA) has determined that China Minmetals Non-Ferrous Metals Co. Ltd. is not entitled to a separate rate and remains part of the China-wide rate of 305.56 percent.
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The first commercial-grade copper from Xstrata Plc’s Antapaccay Mine in southern Peru has been delivered to the country’s Maratani Port for export, the company said.
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High-carbon ferrochrome prices have declined further as dwindling demand forces sellers to cut their prices.
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Thompson Creek Metals Co. Inc. has closed its $350-million offering of 9.75-percent senior secured first-priority notes due 2017, and has terminated its $300-million revolving credit facility.
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Copper consumers have stopped buying spot material for the year and few long-term orders have been placed for 2013, according to traders.
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Inmet Mining Corp. has rejected an unsolicited takeover offer from global copper miner First Quantum Minerals Ltd. and adopted a shareholder rights plan intended to regulate any future takeover bids.
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Norwegian ferrosilicon producer Elkem AS will shut down a furnace at its Salten operations on Dec. 15 “due to deteriorating economic conditions and weak demand in the European marketplace,” the company said Thursday.
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The palladium market will likely be tight next year due to growing global automotive production, supply setbacks in South Africa due to labor disruptions and a shrinking Russian government stockpile of the material, according to a top executive at Norilsk Nickel USA Inc., a subsidiary of Russia’s OAO MMC Norilsk Nickel.
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The Commerce Department has notified the U.S. International Trade Commission that it did not receive adequate substantive responses from interested parties in the sunset review of anti-dumping duty orders on silicomanganese from India, Kazakhstan and Venezuela, as well as an anti-dumping duty order on welded large-diameter line pipe from Japan.
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VSMPO-Avisma Corp.’s management will buy a 45.42-percent stake in their company from Russian Technologies Corp., according to VSMPO-Avisma.
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BHP Billiton Plc will consider both internal and external candidates in its search for a successor to chief executive officer Marius Kloppers, according to chairman Jac Nasser.
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Glencore-Xstrata, as it will be known once Glencore International Plc and Xstrata Plc merge, will produce 2 million tonnes of copper by 2016, making it the largest copper company in the world, Xstrata Copper said Thursday.
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Miners in Chile produced 464,300 tonnes of copper in September, up 6 percent from 438,100 tonnes in the same month last year, pushing the year-to-date output to 3.96 million tonnes vs. 3.8 million tonnes in the first nine months of 2011.
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Hong Kong Exchanges & Clearing Ltd.’s (HKEx’s) acquisition of the London Metal Exchange has been formally approved by the U.K. Financial Services Authority (FSA).
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North American aluminum billet producers and consumers are awaiting the outcome of labor contract discussions between Alcoa Inc. and the United Steelworkers union at the Pittsburgh producer’s Aluminerie de Bécancour (ABI) smelter.
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Contract discussions between Alcoa Inc. and the United Steelworkers union at the company’s Aluminerie de Bécancour (ABI) smelter continued Wednesday after a five-day extension expired at midnight Tuesday.
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Noranda Aluminum Corp. does not anticipate any impact from low water levels on the Mississippi River.