Australian mining company Canyon Resources has refined the development timeline for its Minim Martap bauxite project in Cameroon’s Adamawa region, with the first shipment of bauxite now expected by the end of the third quarter of 2026, around late September. The project is being developed through Canyon’s local subsidiary, Camalco. Before exports can begin, the company must complete a logistics network connecting the mine to Cameroon’s railway system and the Port of Douala. According to the company’s latest update, the first seven locomotives allocated to the project are expected to arrive at the Port of Douala by the end of the second quarter of 2026. The first batch of railcars is scheduled to arrive in July, ahead of the planned start of commercial exports. Rail transport forms a crucial part of the project. Camalco has ordered 22 diesel locomotives from Chinese manufacturer CRRC Ziyang Co. Ltd. and placed an initial order for 560 open-top railcars with India’s Texmaco Rail & Engineering Limited. The agreement also includes an option to acquire an additional 1,040 railcars over the next five years. These rail assets will be used to transport bauxite from Minim Martap to the Port of Douala for export. The deposit is also known for its high-quality ore, containing around 51 per cent alumina and about 2 per cent silica, characteristics that are highly valued by alumina refiners and aluminium producers.

On June 17th, Shenhuo Coal & Power Co., Ltd. released its investor relations activity record. Regarding the coal sector, the company has an annual production capacity of 7.95 million tons, with an estimated annual output of 6.95 million tons, mainly anthracite and lean coal, with a clean coal rate of approximately 75%, and prices fluctuating with market conditions. Since the beginning of this year, coal prices have generally stabilized and rebounded, leading to improved profitability in the coal sector. In the aluminum processing sector, the company currently has an aluminum foil production capacity of 140,000 tons/year and an aluminum foil billet production capacity of 265,000 tons/year. The 50,000-ton/year new energy battery aluminum foil project in Shangqiu is currently progressing smoothly.

Guizhou Zhiyuan Metal Technology Co., Ltd.'s new material project, with an annual output of 100,000 tons of aluminum rods and 50,000 tons of aluminum profiles, recently achieved successful trial production. Construction began in January 2025, and the remaining three production lines will be put into operation soon, supplying markets in Guangdong and Shanghai. General Manager Zhou Lianzhi stated that once all four production lines are at full capacity, the daily output will reach 320 tons, with a daily output value of six to seven million yuan. The company produces multiple series of aluminum materials, covering industries such as automotive, military, and home decoration.

Huafeng Co., Ltd. announced on June 17 that its wholly-owned subsidiary, Zhaoqing Gaoyao Huafeng Electronic Aluminum Foil Co., Ltd., plans to expand its production lines in its existing Phase III workshop, adding two low-voltage frequency conversion etching production lines. The total planned investment for the project is 58.7 million yuan. After the project is put into operation, it is expected to add 300,000 square meters of etching capacity per month.

According to the Jiangxi Provincial Department of Natural Resources, Yichun Times New Energy Mining Co., Ltd. has obtained the "Project Land Use Pre-Approval and Site Selection Opinion" for the Jianxiawo lithium mining project located in Yifeng and Fengxin counties, Jiangxi Province. The approval took effect on June 17, 2026, and will remain valid until June 17, 2029.

Guangdong is a core cluster for China's wire and cable industry, with complete upstream and downstream support, prominent regional advantages, and market reach covering South China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Southeast Asia. The industry is now undergoing transformation. Overseas infrastructure and new energy markets are favorable for enterprises going global, but fluctuations in copper and aluminum raw material prices, capacity homogenization, and market involution continue to squeeze profits. Intelligent and digital transformation has become an urgent necessity for breaking through the industry deadlock. will be held on July 14-15, 2026 at Wyndham Hotel, Guangzhou Design Capital, Guangdong . SMM , together with Baotou Zhenxiong Copper Co., Ltd. , invites you to attend. The conference will leverage data from the entire industry chain and resources in and outside China, focusing on market assessment, transformation and upgrading, supply-demand matching, and empowering go-global strategies, helping local enterprises improve quality and expand markets, and promoting high-quality international development of the regional wire and cable industry. Click , and we look forward to meeting you at the conference. Shanghai Cun'an Industrial Co., Ltd. is located in the Shanghai Nonferrous Metals Trading Center, specializing in commodity trading and supply chain services mainly for nonferrous metals. It is one of the earliest enterprises in China to practice the integration of futures and spot. Starting as a startup, it has grown into an industry benchmark with annual sales exceeding 100 billion yuan and serving over 2,000 manufacturing enterprises, forging a high-quality development path with its own characteristics, and is recognized by the Shanghai municipal government as a top-tier player. Corporate Competitiveness Research-driven and Continuous Innovation The company's market share of copper cathode/aluminum trading volume has consistently held a leading position in the industry. In 2025, annual sales of copper cathode reached 2.3 million mt, and including other products (copper rod, aluminum rod, aluminum ingot, zinc ingot, nickel, silver, tin, lead, lithium carbonate, etc.), total sales reached 4 million mt. Having deeply cultivated the industry for 30 years, the company is annually recognized by professional industry platforms such as "SMM" as a "price submitter," "quality supplier," and other honors. Professional Team, Flexible Models When Shanghai Cun'an was first established, its core team had already experienced multiple market cycles in the commodity sector. Facing industry changes brought by the internet, the company made two important strategic decisions: first, to stick to its core business in nonferrous metals and extend deeply into supply chain services; second, to respond to the Belt and Road Initiative and steadily expand into the African market. Currently, the company has nearly 30 projects underway in Africa, with over 3,000 Chinese and foreign employees, building momentum for international market expansion. Solid Channels, Service First Guided by the national plan to accelerate the development of new-type international trade, the company has established subsidiaries in the Lin-gang Special Area of Shanghai, Singapore, and Hong Kong, actively deploying cross-border finance and trade businesses. Aligning with the Belt and Road Initiative, the company has invested in Africa, where its industries now span various sectors across the continent, including manufacturing of production entities, agriculture, warehousing and logistics, ore and recycled metals, among others. Corporate Vision The vigorous development of the bulk commodity industry is both the aspiration and mission of Cun’an. Cun’an is willing to join hands with its peers, working together to build a more honest, standardized, and efficient non-ferrous metal trade circle, jointly promoting the effective allocation of commodity resources in the real economy environment, and striving to enhance the competitiveness and industry discourse power of China’s non-ferrous metal industry. Contact Information Business Director: Xiong Li 138 1660 9892 Business Manager: Xiong Xicheng 130 4415 6111 SMM Conference Contact Chen Bo 183 7089 1981 chenbo@smm.cn

Yinghe Technology announced plans to acquire a 100% stake in Aonhua (Shanghai) Automation Engineering Co., Ltd. for Yuan 204 million. Upon completion, Aonhua Automation will become a wholly owned subsidiary of the company. Yinghe stated that the acquisition will strengthen its downstream integration capabilities and enable full-process equipment coverage from electrode manufacturing to module and PACK assembly, enhancing its one-stop lithium battery production line solutions.

[SMM Hot Topic] Middle East Steel Export Flows Shift: Finished Products Stall and Steel Billet Counterattacks Looking back at 2025, the Middle East market was undoubtedly the most dazzling "emerging dynamic market" in China's overseas steel landscape. In 2025, China's total steel exports to the Middle East reached 15.81 million mt, with monthly shipments basically stable in the high range of 1.2–1.3 million mt. Against the backdrop of total annual steel exports of 134 million mt, up 14% YoY, the Middle East market accounted for 11%–12% of China's total overseas steel export share. This means that in a single geo-economic region, its share and strategic reliance were second only to Southeast Asia, serving as the "second largest core pillar" for China's steel going global. In terms of product mix, high-added-value HRC (29% share), steel pipes essential for oil and gas projects (18% share), and medium-thickness plates (14% share) formed the three dominant players, reflecting the region's strong diversified industrial and infrastructure throughput capacity. However, it was precisely due to such a massive trade base in 2025 and high reliance on conventional Persian Gulf shipping lanes that when geopolitical storms suddenly struck and straits were dramatically blocked, the resulting "broad market stall" and supply chain disruption were so severe. Below, we will analyze in order: the specific situation of China's steel exports to the Middle East, how cargo pressure was shifted through port replacements during the strait blockade, and how the export landscape will be reshaped after the latest US-Israel negotiations? The "Stall" and Structural Anomaly of China's Steel Exports to the Middle East Data Source: SMM, China's General Administration of Customs First, let's look at total export performance. According to SMM historical data and the latest customs export trends, China's total steel exports to the Middle East in the first four months of 2026 plummeted from 5.47 million mt in the same period of 2025 to 3.57 million mt, with April exports directly halving. Specifically, among China's 5.47 million mt of steel exports to the Middle East from January to April 2025, a highly advanced finished-product-oriented export characteristic was evident. HRC (29%), steel pipe (18%), coated steel (15%), and medium-thickness plates (14%) constituted the four mainstays of China’s steel trade. In terms of destination countries, Saudi Arabia’s rigid demand for offshore/oil & gas pipe (986,000 mt) and the UAE’s strong processing throughput of general HRC (1.607 million mt) and medium-thickness plates (779,000 mt) jointly established the traditional “dual-core consumption hinterland” within the Persian Gulf. Data source: SMM, General Administration of Customs of China Supply Shock and Physical Scissors Gap: The “Billet Export Bonanza” Under a Double Squeeze Since the start of 2026, the blockade of the Persian Gulf Strait caused by geopolitical conflicts significantly weakened overall shipments, while a dramatic “underlying mutation” simultaneously unfolded in the product mix. Steel billet, a minor product that previously accounted for only an 8% share (431,000 mt), registered a strong countertrend increase of 24% in the first four months of 2026. According to the SMM survey, the underlying driver of this anomaly originated from a localized supply shock induced by geopolitical shifts in Iran. If the closure of the Persian Gulf Strait severed the “aorta” of Middle Eastern steel imports, the sudden destruction of Iran’s two largest steel giants—Mobarakeh Steel Company (MSC) in Isfahan and Khuzestan Steel Company (KSC)—on March 27, 2026, completely ignited a “raw material upheaval” within the region. Iran is the world’s tenth-largest and the Middle East’s largest crude steel producer (accounting for over 50% of the region’s total crude steel output), with annual steel exports exceeding 10 million mt, among which semi-finished steel billets are the absolute mainstay. Mobarakeh (MSC) has an annual capacity of 11.8 million mt (20% of Iran’s total capacity), making it the undisputed “King of Flat Products/Sheets & Plates” in the Middle East; Khuzestan (KSC) is Iran’s second-largest steel producer and its most critical production base for slabs and billets. Data source: SMM, General Administration of Customs of China Under normal conditions, Iran was the primary supplier of low-priced steel billets to local rolling mills in the Middle East. With the sharp contraction in Iran's external supply, rolling mills in the Middle East, particularly in Oman and parts of the UAE outside the Gulf that were not directly affected by the blockade, faced severe raw material supply disruption risks. To maintain production, local buyers quickly released a large number of urgent inquiries to the international market. According to SMM survey, the huge demand gap for steel billets created by Iran's exit was filled and shared by supplies from China, India, and Russia. Because the local shortage was mainly crude steel raw material for rolling sheets and plates, and the equipment destruction from explosions meant that rolling lines were the first to restart, the main incremental product in these counter-trend orders was steel slab. This situation shares similarities with the article at https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/bsrZaRRSRDHC_FmGLulJOQ (Middle East turmoil triggers "mismatch", China accelerates filling a supply vacuum of about 2.3 million mt in Southeast Asia), which mentioned that China would accelerate taking over steel billet supply gaps. That is, despite the decline in steel exports this year, billet exports also achieved counter-trend growth. Stock Game: The "X-Shaped Crossover" of Inside-Gulf Shutdowns and Outside-Gulf Safe Havens Verified by SMM through freight forwarders, steel trade (especially medium-thickness plates, pipes, and steel billets) relies heavily on bulk or breakbulk vessels. When container liners encounter blockades, they can easily reroute by amending bookings via computer systems, but the diversion of bulk carriers faces rigid constraints from destination port drafts, specialized handling equipment (such as large quay cranes), and inland truck connections. Therefore, over the past two months, the supply chain staged a dramatic "port drift" inside and outside the Persian Gulf. The following uses SMM's panoramic shipping data to explain in detail the changes in cargo flow between ports. Under normal conditions, over 70% of China's steel shipments to the Middle East converged densely on Jebel Ali Port inside the Persian Gulf and Dammam Port on the eastern coast of Saudi Arabia. But after the strait blockade, steel port arrivals at these two traditional hubs showed a historic "physical shock" in SMM's high-frequency shipping data (falling to zero from April to May). Meanwhile, the diverted cargo, fighting to survive, surged wildly toward alternative ports outside the strait, tearing open a "lifeline of safety" spatially: ① "Overload Surge" at Oman's Port of Sohar: As the most critical cross-border multimodal transshipment hub outside the Gulf, its port arrivals in April surged nearly fivefold MoM. Large batches of Chinese HRC and steel billet originally destined for the inner Gulf were forced ashore here, causing massive congestion at the port in May as cross-border heavy truck capacity collapsed. ② "Western Route Counterflow" at Saudi Arabia's Jeddah Port: Saudi Arabia abandoned its eastern sea route (Dammam Port) nationwide, forcibly redirecting all Chinese orders to Jeddah on the Red Sea side, causing its throughput to surge to a peak of 361,000 mt in April. Source: SMM, Google Maps However, it should be noted that while cargo can be transferred via other ports in the short term, port arrivals in May have already shown a weakening trend again. The reason is that alternative ports outside the Gulf simply cannot handle such massive and concentrated cargo volumes, leading to extremely severe congestion. According to SMM's survey, because navigation within the Gulf is no longer possible, some shipping lines originally bound for Jebel Ali had to divert to Fujairah, but are still queuing for berths. Jeddah Port faces similar issues. With tight capacity, prices keep surging, and transportation faces severe obstacles. Source: SMM Outlook for Change: With the US-Iran blockade-lifting deal, what impact will the shipping supply chain face? After 108 days of the "dual blockade" (Iran's blockade of the strait and the US's counter-blockade of Iranian ports) that gripped the lifeline of global energy and commodities, the US and Iran officially issued successive high-profile statements announcing a ceasefire memorandum of understanding. The relevant timeline is summarized below. Data source: Compiled by SMM from public channels The news, once released, triggered a strong market reaction. On one hand, there are expectations for export increments from shipping recovery; on the other hand, there are certain demand expectations for post-disaster reconstruction. According to the latest SMM survey, most exporters have not responded enthusiastically to the lifting of the blockade and remain skeptical about its actual implementation. Therefore, from the perspective of actual order-taking, shipments to the Middle East still need 3 to 4 weeks to be verified. If a full lifting is confirmed, the "demand backlog" caused by the earlier shipping disruptions will see a concentrated release. Based on past customs data and the local supply-demand balance table, SMM roughly predicts that finished steel products will experience strong growth expectations, potentially filling a disaster-induced gap of approximately 1.7-2.1 million mt. Among them, HRC accounts for the highest proportion (29%) of China's finished steel exports to the Middle East. Although the Middle East's largest flat steel giant, Iran's Mobarakeh Steel Company (MSC), has reported production resumptions for its blast furnace previously damaged by war, its capacity is in a post-disaster repair phase and is not expected to fill the local gap in the short term. However, recent market rumors suggest that Indian resources are seizing the Middle Eastern market at lower prices, which will also pose some impact on China's export order-taking. However, for semi-finished products, the reason Chinese steel billets have been "hot" in recent months is the supply gap caused by the strait blockade and the bombing of Iranian steel mills. Once Iran's logistics fully recover, Chinese steel billets will lose their advantage in absolute price, logistics distance, and surrounding multilateral competition, and the demand gap in Southeast Asia previously filled by substituting Iranian sources may also be reclaimed. Recently, according to SMM surveys, billet resources are already circulating in the Middle Eastern market. Through the following comparison of comprehensive landed costs (CFR) for billets in the Middle East, it can be clearly seen that Chinese resources are under comprehensive pressure: Therefore, steel billet exports to the Middle East are expected to be somewhat limited, with competition only possible at lower prices. Preliminary forecasts indicate a pressure reduction of 50,000–250,000 mt. However, we need to broaden our perspective to the global multilateral trade context, and we must not fall into excessive pessimism due to localized marginal reductions. Although the billets exported to the Middle East are under pressure, the incremental steel billet volumes that previously replaced Iranian exports to Southeast Asia may not necessarily be wiped out. Given the uncertainty of the Middle East situation and based on considerations of a more stable supply chain, Southeast Asian buyers may continue to source from Chinese suppliers. Therefore, against the backdrop of an overall steel recovery and resilience in steel billet prices, SMM maintains its earlier view, holding a moderately optimistic stance on annual steel exports, with expectations of "steady incremental growth." Finally, it needs to be added that, currently, due to severe port congestion, even if the strait is confirmed passable, it will still take a long time for actual cargo to arrive and cannot immediately be reflected in the data. At the same time, ocean freight rates will also maintain high-level fluctuations in the short term due to unfavorable port cargo pick-up. 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[SMM Express] According to reports, Qingdao Fengguang Precision Machinery Co., Ltd. recently plans to acquire a 51% equity stake in Beijing Weishi Shenlan Technology Co., Ltd. for 112 million yuan in cash. Upon completion of the transaction, Fengguang Precision will gain control of Weishi Shenlan. This acquisition will promote deep synergy between both parties at the levels of technology, capacity and market, injecting new momentum into the high-quality development of Fengguang Precision.

Recently, the Tengzhou Branch of the Zaozhuang Municipal Ecology and Environment Bureau approved three expansion projects of CALB Technology (Shandong) Co., Ltd. Upon completion of these three projects, the total energy storage battery production capacity will reach 160GWh. Among them, the commercial vehicle and energy storage battery integrated system project involves an investment of 1 billion yuan, covering an area of 219,700 square meters, primarily constructing intelligent PACK production lines with an annual production capacity of 60GWh for battery systems. The energy storage battery project involves an investment of 4 billion yuan, covering an area of 336,600 square meters, utilizing leased factory buildings to set up workshops for electrodes, cells, NMP purification, etc., equipped with gas steam boilers and thermal oil heaters, achieving an annual production capacity of 50GWh for energy storage batteries.