U.S. Steel Lays Off Thousands and Copper Mining Costs Fall

The latest MetalCrawler news includes layoffs in Illinois, the costs of copper ore mining falling and a top iron ore executive wants to cap production.

U.S. Steel Lays off 2,080

U.S. Steel Corp. said it will temporarily idle its Granite City, Ill., plant as it consolidates its North American flat-rolled steel operations, reflecting weakened demand from the energy sector.

Free Download: Cut Your Iron Ore Shipping Costs

The steelmaker said idling of the plant will impact roughly 2,080 employees at the operation. The layoffs are separate from those related to a permanent shutdown of the Granite City Works coke-making plant.

Copper Mining Costs Fall

A new study published Tuesday by SNL Metals & Mining shows the costs of mining copper have steadily declined over the past three years.

The report, comes barely a day after the benchmark US copper price jumped to its highest intraday level in three months, extending a surprising rebound in the battered commodity.

Fortescue Chairman Wants to Cap Iron Ore Production

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission launched an investigation today into comments made by Fortescue Metals Chairman Andrew Forrest at a dinner in Shanghai in which he effectively called for collusion among miners, the Australian Business Times reported.

“All of us should cap our production now and we’ll find the iron ore price will go straight back up to $70, $80, $90,” Forrest said.

Fortescue issued a statement saying there were provisions in the Competition and Consumer Act which made the comments OK.

[download-button url=”https://agmetalminer.com/monthly-report-price-index-trends-march-2015″] Free Download: Price Trends in the March MMI Report[/download-button]