Gold Silver Reports (GSR) – Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing has appointed local businesswoman and politician Laura Cha as its new chairman of the board, the exchange announced on Thursday. Vale’s base metals business posted a 45.7% increase in its core earnings in the first quarter of 2018 from a year earlier, helped primarily by the higher realized nickel prices during the period, the Brazilian diversified miner said on Wednesday.
Most lead scrap prices in the United States have climbed higher due to growing competition for material in the domestic market following a slight renewal in export activity, but zinc scrap prices held steady across the board.
The manganese supply squeeze continued to push manganese flakes higher this week, with prices climbing more than 8%. Sanction panic in the aluminium market has calmed following the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets and Control’s slight loosening of sanctions involving Rusal material.
Lucas Giannini, an aluminium trader with Gerald Group in London, will leave the company at the end of April, sources close to the situation told Metal Bulletin on Wednesday. – Neal Bhai Reports (NBR)
