Building on last year’s record attendance with over 500 delegates from around the world, the 2009 LME Metals Seminar will be held on Monday 12 October 2009 at the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre, Westminster, London.

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Turnover since the contracts’ launch in February 2008 now totals 1.3 million tonnes, or $679 million, with volumes increasing progressively since December.

Of significant importance is the decision by leading price providers Platts and SteelOrbis to use the LME Mediterranean billet contract as the central reference point for their scrap and rebar market assessments.

Both organisations will publish rebar prices as a premium to the LME billet price and scrap prices as a discount to the LME price.

This reflects growing acceptance in the steel market for the LME billet price and its adoption by Platts and SteelOrbis will further consolidate its use in industry.

“The LME steel price is fast becoming the industry reference price,” said Liz Milan, commercial director of the exchange. “Industry can be confident that our prices reflect the market and that they can use our contracts to manage their risk.”

The committee is chaired by Standard Bank’s Jim Coupland. LME chief executive Martin Abbott is vice chairman.

Other members of the committee are: Ugur Dalbeler (Colakoglu); Butch Zeederberg (MacSteel); Ray Key (Deutsche Bank); Tim Wilson (JP Morgan); Mark Lyons (Cargill International Trading Pte Ltd); Jean-Luc Fiorenzoni (Stemcor); Liz Milan (LME); Michael Hutchinson (RBS Sempra Metals Ltd); Mel Wilde (Metalloyd Ltd); Jeff Kabel (Koch); Shon Loth (ICS Ltd) and Stephen Branton-Speak (Goldman Sachs)

About The LME:

The LME is the world’s premier non-ferrous metals market and achieved volumes of more than $10,000 billion in 2008.

On 25 February 2008 the Exchange launched Mediterranean and Far East steel billet futures contracts on LME Select and the telephone market. Ring trading commenced on 28 April 2008.

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Base metals fell sharply in the last week as the financial market mood continues to remain weak on concerns that the world economies are sinking into an intensifying recession. The current crisis is expected to continue well into 2009 as much the developed world is expected to remain in recession.

Since the developed countries are facing a crunch, the developing nations that depend on exports to these countries will also be hurt. Hence, all these concerns are leading to fears of lower demand in times of weakening global economic situation.

Since trade takes place on a global level, the crisis is into a two way street where no one can escape the effects of a massive pile up. Copper inventories continue to rise steadily and this situation indicates that the demand is weak. The metal has breached its important support of $3370 on LME and presently trades around the $3200 mark. Aluminum prices continue to face the pressure of falling crude oil prices ($45 levels) as a decline in oil prices means lower cost of producing primary aluminum as energy costs are approx 40% of total cost of production. This reduces concern over supply of aluminum in the market.

Courtesy: www.commodityonline.com

Tin price dropped by 3.3 percent to US$13,000/ton, and had decreased by 38 percent since June. Copper price increased by 3 percent to US$4,810/ton. Lead price saw an increase of US$80/ton due to the stock reduce.

Nickel price raised by US$20/ton to US$10,800/ton and zinc price raised by US$50/ton to US$1230/ton. Aluminum price increased to US$2,205/ton, up by US$20/ton.

LME nickel price hit low –
Last Friday, LME nickel price plunged to US$10,585/ton.

Since October 7, the nickel price has sharply plunged by US$1,250/ton and continues to show a downward trend, hitting the lowest price within the last two years.

Steel traders may observe nickel price dropping down to US$10,000/ton this week. Some steel traders are even expecting the price to bottom out, after which they can look forward to a fresh new rebound, leading to better dealings in the stainless steel market.

Source www.yieh.com

LME Copper, LME Warehouse Stocks, LME Aluminum LME Lead, LME Zinc, LME Tin,  and LME Nickel can be found at this website on the LME Price Page or http://www.scrapmetalpricesandauctions.com/lme .  The webpage provides updated price charts for all the metals listed above.

Commenting on the announcement LME Commercial Director, Liz Milan said: “Today our steel contracts have reached a notable double milestone. These are still early days for our steel contracts, but the fact that 260,000 tonnes of billet has traded on the LME shows that there is growing interest in our contracts and that the industry is beginning to understand the value of using futures.”

Notes to editors:

On 25 February 2008 the Exchange launched steel billet futures contracts for the Mediterranean and Far East regions;
Cash trading for the LME steel billet contracts commenced on the 24 July 2008.
The LME steel billet contracts are traded in lots of 65 metric tonnes;
The LME is the world’s premier non-ferrous metals market and achieved volumes of almost 93 million lots in 2007, an increase of 7% on 2006 figures and equivalent to $9,500 billion in monetary terms;
Trading at the LME in non-ferrous metals, steel and plastics takes place across three platforms: through open-outcry trading on the “Ring”; through an inter-office telephone market and through LME Select electronic trading platform.

Source www.LME.com