Looking back at Singapore. MOLPIX at Shuttlestock
Dear MMTA Members,
Welcome to your May edition of the Crucible magazine,
This is its first issue since the MMTA’s International Minor Metals Conference and AGM took place in Singapore in April. In this edition you will find conference highlights — including impressions from Singapore by CPM Group — and the outcome of the MMTA board elections.
The Association is pleased to welcome new members, as it heads into another year of supporting the trade in the face of global challenges.
Building on minor metal insights, don’t miss Fastmarkets investigating indium’s market moves here this
month.
Tariffs and Customs
Challenges are coming at our industry thick and fast, right after the MMTA conference panel discussed the policy effectiveness or otherwise of trade barriers.
In the middle of May, the US government announced its proposal to impose or significantly raise (to between 25% and 100%) tariffs on Chinese imports linked to the very issues that the world is currently trying to solve— critical raw materials supply, transition to sustainable energy and transport electrification, under the urgent need to reduce carbon emissions.
Amid an EV price wars, that saw US car maker Tesla outperformed by Chinese rivals, notably BYD, the US proposes to protect its internal market and industry with tariffs of 100% on Chinese battery electric vehicles. The tariffs on Chinese
made solar panels are set to rise to 50%.
Strikingly, given the global metal industries overwhelming reliance on China for many minor metals and rare earths, are 25% tariffs on a raft of critical minerals, including REE, in-which the US is far from self-sufficient even with help from friend-shoring. You can read the full list of proposed measures (timescale as yet undefined) as published in the US
Federal Register of 28th May (download it here) The proposed tariff measures were opened up to comments on 29th
of May. You can submit your comments via the USTR Comments Portal https://comments.ustr.gov/s/ up until 11:59pm EST on 28th June 2024.
MMTA member Argus Media helpfully unpacks the originally unclear “certain critical minerals” section of the proposed tariffs—and delves into their market impact in an article for this month’s issue.
Nickel and sanctions on Russian exchange–traded metals
The tariffs barriers on a host of Chinese metals came a month after the UK and US governments banned delivery of Russian aluminum, nickel and copper produced after 13 April 2024 to the LME and CME respectively.
In this issue, S & P Platts looks at the market response to the measure. The measure is not watertight, as it does not account of old stock of material already held on the LME—or held off warrant and circulating in in the physical market. Sanctions have not stemmed the flow of Russian metal to the usual market and, notably, higher value metals like cobalt, platinum or palladium are not included in the sanctions.
In the meantime, also in this issue CRU visits and reports on its observations from a nickel supply chain in Indonesia. This is a producing country that helped by laterite ore resources and high pressure acid leach (HPAL) process has knocked Russia out of its long-held nickel top spot and is now winning a fair share of downstream processing.
EU Customs Reform
Where there are trade barriers there are circumventions. This is one of the issues that preoccupied the recent meeting of the European Commission’s Trade Contact Group, from which Julia Tiscowiec of law firm Sidley Austin reports in brief.
MMTA Members can read Sidley’s notes on EU customs reform in this month’s Crucible magazine issue.
EU CRM Act is now in force
The EU’s Critical Raw Materials act came into force on 23 May. You can read the full text of it here.
Notable are the targets set by EU to 2030, such as increasing the EU’s ex-traction and use of own resources to meet at least 10% of demand, or strategic raw materials and de-bottlenecking supply and building the full value chain to gradually raise this to 40%; and to increase recycling capacity to generate 25% of the EU’s strategic raw material supply.
By 2030 the EU aspires to stop relying on any one country for more than 65 % of its supply of any strategic raw material, allowing for strategic partnerships and trade agreements.
CarbonChain in Office Hours
If you have a pressing question about carbon footprint regulations, you can ask experts at MMTA carbon tracking partner CarbonChain in a free one-to-one 15-minute session. A pilot Office Hours session is scheduled for 5th June between 2-4 pm GMT, offering a total of 8 slots. For further details, orto enquire about future sessions, please contact CarbonChain or MMTA at admin@mmta.co.uk
Hold the date — Tuesday 1st October
In the June issue we will delve deeper into industry news and developments, and we will be bringing you more upcoming events in the rest of 2024. In the meantime, save the date for this year’s LME Week events.
The MMTA and Project Blue Critical Materials Forum returns to London on 1st October, as does the MMTA Anniversary Dinner. The 51st MMTA Anniversary Dinner will be held at De Vere Grand Connaught Rooms in Covent Garden, London, from 7pm, Tuesday 1st October 2024.
Bookings for the MMTA Anniversary Dinner are now open. Please book online HERE or contact the MMTA at admin@mmta.co.uk for further information, table bookings or the sponsorship package.
The Critical Materials Forum 2024 is an information event that is FREE to attend but Pre-Registration is Required (please pre-register HERE) as numbers are limited. The event, at the Royal Society of Chemistry in Piccadilly on Tuesday 1st October will start with registration at 1:30pm, and will be followed by Project Blue networking drinks from 4pm.
Please visit MMTA Events and the Industry Events for diary dates and don’t forget to log into your MMTA Member Benefits section for your exclusive discount codes to upcoming industry events. Please also keep an eye on MMTA emails to membership about upcoming events and opportunities.
New for this year, MMTA is pleased to offer its members an exclusive 20% discount to the registration for the Metal Recycling Conference & Expo 2024, Europe’s leading recycling and critical raw materials recovery event, taking place on 26-27 June 2024 in Messe Frankfurt, Germany.
The registration for this conference gives you access to THREE EVENTS co-located under one roof
- E-Waste World Conference & Expo 2024
- Battery Recycling Conference & Expo 2024
- Metal Recycling Conference & Expo 2024
Please see HERE or contact the MMTA for more details.
