Iron ore swaps rise to record 4 million tonne in July - TSI

Friday, 05 Aug 2011

Reference price provider the Steel Index said that the volume of iron ore swaps cleared globally rose to an all time high of more than 4 million tonnes in July, reflecting growing interest in the steelmaking material's hedging tool.

The bulk of the swaps, which totaled 4.09 million tonnes valued at more than USD 700 million, were cleared by the Singapore Exchange.

The Singapore Exchange said separately that volumes reached a record of 7,845 lots, equivalent to 3.92 million tonnes, beating the previous record of 6,905 lots, or 3.45 million tonnes, reached in May.

Other swap contracts are cleared by LCH. Clearnet in London, the CME Group, Norway's NOS Clearing and the Indian Commodity Exchange. All the bourses use TSI as the reference price index.

Iron ore swaps, launched in May 2008, are cash-settled contracts that allow steelmakers and traders to hedge their cost after the industry abandoned a system of pricing contracts once a year in favor of a more flexible quarterly scheme.

(sourced from Reuters)

Teck says Elkview employees reject deal with union

Mon Mar 21, 2011 1:19pm GMT

March 21 (Reuters) - Teck Resources said employees at its Elkview coal mine in southeastern British Columbia have rejected a new five-year collective agreement with the union, prolonging the strike that has hit production at the site.

Work at the site stopped on Jan. 30, and the company said it plans to restart talks with the Elkview union bargaining committee to reach a new agreement.

Last Tuesday, the company said it had reached a tentative agreement with the union at its Elkview coal mine.

Teck, one of the world's top exporters of metallurgical coal, a key raw material used to make steel, has a 95 percent interest in the Elkview mine. The remaining 5 percent is split between Japan's Nippon Steel Corp and South Korean steelmaker Posco .

Teck shares closed at C$53.37 on Friday on the Toronto Stock Exchange. (Reporting by Bhaswati Mukhopadhyay in Bangalore; Editing by Unnikrishnan Nair, sourced Reuters)

Fenwei to hold coking coal market seminar in Marh

Feb26, 2011

China coal & Coke Market Forum in the theme of "Global Coking Coal Resource & Market Seminar", will be held by China Coal Resource (CCR) on Mar 23-25, 2011, at Taiyuan Jinci Hotel, Taiyuan, Shanxi Province, P.R. China.

China Coal Resource (CCR) called on the industrial experts, analysts and researchers at home and abroad to gather in Shanxi, the largest coking coal production base of the world, to make further communication and discussions on these hot issues.

Meanwhile, delegates from investment, securities, coking coal producer, steel maker, coal logistics to other related industries will also present at this meeting. Hereby we are delighted to welcome our international partners joining us for this forum.

To view the Letter of Invitation, please visit http://eni.sxcoal.com/file/Letter%20of%20Invitation.pdf;

To learn more details about the forum, please visit http://en.sxcoal.com/html/enforum.html;