Fears over the economic impact of the coronavirus, now officially named COVID-19, appear to have further subsided, with all base metals "decidedly in the black with the ‘risk on' appetite firmly back in vogue (at least for one day)," Marex Spectron's Dee Perera noted from the LME desk.

 

Vale SA's (BZ: VALE3) drop in iron ore production announced yesterday saw the company officially lose its position in 2019 as the world's top iron ore producer to Rio Tinto, Reuters reported.

 

Vale ended "the most challenging year of its history" with iron ore fines production 21.5% lower than in 2018 at 302 million tonnes due to repercussions of its Brumadinho tailings dam failure.

 

Rio's (LSE: RIO) Pilbara operations had produced 326.7Mt in 2019 on a 100% basis.

 

This follows BHP becoming the top copper miner based on production for 2019, after Chile's Codelco this week reported a 5.6% fall in 2019 production to 1.7Mt, its lowest level in 11 years.

 
BHP (ASX: BHP) had last month reported copper production of 885,000t for the December half, taking its 2019 total to 1.749Mt.

 

Vale closed 3.7% higher in Brazil yesterday, Rio rose 0.7% in London and BHP was down 0.8% in morning Australian trade.