Category: 3. Business

That may put it at odds with the mine’s main owner and customer, China, which consumes more than 70% of the steelmaking material globally, and has moved to centralize imports and drive down prices.

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Simandou is 75% Chinese-owned, meaning three-quarters of its output will head to China.

Iron ore prices hit their lowest level since July this week as China demand fears and swelling inventories dragged on prices, highlighting fragile fundamentals despite supply hiccups offering brief support.

GUINEA TARGETS GREEN STEEL MARKET

Sylla said Guinea wants to bypass China and sell its Simandou high-grade iron ore directly to Europe and the Middle East.

Simandou’s ore, grading 65% iron, targets the premium segment used for less carbon-intensive green steel.

With Guinea due to receive 15% of total output from each of Simandou’s two mining blocks, it will have rare leverage in the emerging market for green steel dominated by Australia and Brazil, said Erik Hedborg, head of raw steel materials at metals consultancy CRU Group.

“In Australia, they don’t have the premium. That gives Rio the opportunity to sell both Pilbara 62-grade and Simandou’s premium ore – not just to China, but to European steel mills and maybe the Middle East – for green steel,” Sylla said.

Rio said it does not comment on commercial matters. Vale did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

One way Guinea can possibly boost prices is to work with other major producers in managing their collective export rate, Hay said.

But with China being the main target market for Simandou’s ore, Guinea’s pricing power is somewhat weakened, Hay said.

“(Simandou ore) will almost certainly be exported on Chinese ships and represents just 1% of the seaborne trade, which is dominated by China.”

China will still lean heavily on Australia and Brazil, but Simandou’s mid-cost profile is competitive enough to displace pricier supply and reshape market dynamics, said Hedborg.

SIMANDOU PROJECT DELAYED FOR DECADES

Production at Simandou, originally scheduled for 1997, has been long delayed. Guinea’s ruling junta ordered development to be paused in 2022, saying it was seeking clarification on how the country’s interests would be preserved.

The $20 billion project includes a more than 650-km railway and deep-water port, with Guinea holding 15% stakes in mines, infrastructure, and future steel plants.

Officials say this co-development model slashes costs and ensures long-term revenue for the state.

“Simandou is not just a mining project – it’s a geopolitical and economic lever,” Guinea’s chief of staff Djiba Diakite said. “We are pro-African, defending Guinean interests.”

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We recently published 10 Stocks on a Hot Streak. XPeng Inc. (NYSE:XPEV) is one of the best-performing stocks on Tuesday.

XPeng rallied to a new record high on Tuesday, as investors gobbled up shares amid significant progress in its artificial intelligence (AI) efforts following a viral video that showed its humanoid robot walking so convincingly like a human.

The video, showcased by XPeng Inc. (NYSE:XPEV) CEO Xiao Peng in a conference in Guangzhou, China last week, showed its humanoid robot called Iron walking across the stage with lifelike movements, and which sparked debate among social media users about whether it was a human in disguise. The company then cut it open to prove it was a machine.

Pixabay/Public Domain

The development forms part of XPeng Inc.’s (NYSE:XPEV) vision to deploy robots in various real-life scenarios, including factory floors and retail shops.

In other news, the company also filed an application with the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology for the launch of new variants for its G6 SUV and X9 Ultra in line with its plans to ramp up its electric vehicle offerings.

On Monday next week, XPeng Inc. (NYSE:XPEV) is scheduled to release its financial and operating highlights for the third quarter of the year, where it is expected to post total revenue growth of 94 to 108 percent year-on-year to a range of 19.6 billion to 21 billion yuan.

Additionally, it successfully recorded 116,007 vehicle deliveries during the period, marking a 149 percent jump year-on-year. The number also fell within the company’s expectations of 113,000 to 118,000 vehicle deliveries for the period.

While we acknowledge the potential of XPEV as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that some AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and have limited downside risk. If you are looking for an extremely cheap AI stock that is also a major beneficiary of Trump tariffs and onshoring, see our free report on the best short-term AI stock.

READ NEXT: 30 Stocks That Should Double in 3 Years and 11 Hidden AI Stocks to Buy Right Now.

Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.

Global law firm White & Case LLP has advised a buyer consortium led by Oceanpine Capital Inc. (Oceanpine Capital) on a go-private transaction involving LakeShore Biopharma Co., Ltd (LakeShore Biopharma).

The buyer consortium, which consists of Oceanpine Capital and certain existing LakeShore Biopharma shareholders, will acquire all of the outstanding shares in LakeShore Biopharma that it does not own pursuant to certain merger agreement and ancillary agreements dated November 4, 2025.

LakeShore Biopharma is a global biopharmaceutical company which discovers, develops, manufactures and delivers new generations of vaccines and therapeutic biologics for infectious diseases and cancer.

The White & Case team was led by partner Alan Bao (Beijing) and included associates Qianru Hong, Ryann An (both Shanghai), Zixie Zhu (Beijing) and Paul Qu (Hong Kong).

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A man who threatened to rape and murder an air steward has had his prison sentence more than tripled.

In February 2023, Salman Iftikhar, 38, from Iver, near Gerrards Cross in Buckinghamshire, made the threats while intoxicated on a flight from London to Lahore, Pakistan.

In August at Isleworth Crown Court, he was sentenced to 15 months in prison for one count of making threats to kill and one count of racially aggravated intentional harassment.

His sentence has been increased to four years and three months following a referral by the law officers – who are senior legal advisors to the government – to the Court of Appeal under the unduly lenient sentence scheme.

His abuse had continued during the eight-hour flight and he told other cabin crew their hotels would be blown up.

The crew had discussed diverting the flight to Turkey, as the abuse was so serious.

In a statement, the woman who was the main target of Iftikhar’s abuse said she remained “haunted and traumatised” and had had to take 14 months off work.

Ellie Reeves MP, the solicitor general, said: “Salman Iftikhar made horrific threats of rape and violence against an air steward who was simply doing her job.

“His tirade of hate and abuse caused distress and anguish for the whole flight, and all of our thoughts today should be with the cabin crew and passengers who suffered from Iftikhar’s vile behaviour.”

Reeves added that his case went to the Court of Appeal after “several requests” from members of the public to review his sentence.

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) is exploring a move to a more flexible, iterative licensing regime for treatments targeted at rare diseases – broadly, medicinal products intended to treat conditions prevalent in no more than five in every 10,000 people, also known as orphan medicines – after identifying problems with the way existing regulatory requirements map to such treatments.

“Current regulatory pathways assume large populations, standard endpoints, and multiple trials,” the MHRA said. “Rare disease therapies, however, need flexibility, adaptable trial designs, real-world evidence, and expedited review – needs that existing frameworks do not adequately support.”

The MHRA’s plans for a more adaptable regulatory regime for orphan medicines are not yet fully fledged – it intends to publish a draft framework by spring 2026 – but its recent policy paper provides an insight into how the system might operate. At the heart of the plans is the intention to develop “a regulatory process which bridges clinical trials and marketing authorisations”.

In practice, this could mean the MHRA granting “preliminary approvals” based on “appropriate, albeit limited, evidence” with “iterative reassessment” thereafter. It might also involve substituting the need for some clinical trials by relying on other “real-world data” or “natural history comparators”.

The system could be underpinned by a pooling of data internationally via new “global rare disease registries”, so that developers would have a greater sample size to consider patients and outcomes. Other “appropriate post-market monitoring”, the MHRA said, might entail the need for further studies to be undertaken to “clarify and further define risks” if new evidence emerges once products have been brought to market.

The MHRA said it is seeking to ensure that the new regulatory regime for orphan medicines is aligned with the health technology assessment process, which in England is overseen by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE). However, experts in medicines regulation at Pinsent Masons called on the MHRA to go further.

Catherine Drew of Pinsent Masons said: “This is a bold approach from the MHRA and is clearly targeted at making the UK an attractive place for the approval of therapies for rare diseases. One could imagine that on the proposed pathway the UK acts in effect as a ‘test bed’ environment, generating further data; prior to the therapy being rolled out globally. Such an approach has the potential to benefit UK patients – if this innovative approach is coupled with an innovative bespoke reward, be that regulatory or intellectual property, such as an additional supplementary protection certificate (SPC) term. There is also the potential of additional significant benefit to originators in engaging with the MHRA in this regime.”

“However, the regulatory pathway for orphan medicines is only part of the puzzle. The MHRA has not addressed the question of the NHS then paying for the products that are developed,” she said.

Gareth Morgan of Pinsent Masons added: “With orphan medicines, the market manufacturers are supplying to is often very small, meaning the price they need to charge healthcare providers like the NHS to obtain a fair return on their investment is typically significantly greater than the average medicinal product.”

“NICE has said that there is flexibility in the system – that they can spend three- to 10-times more than average on rare disease therapies – but many clients do not benefit from this. NICE also said its remit is to get the most ‘health per pound spent’ – an overarching metric that is at odds with the idea of investing in rare disease therapies. In our experience, many clients have struggled to get NICE on board due to the high level of statistical uncertainty around outcomes that low patient numbers bring to orphan drug studies. This level of uncertainty often bleeds into pricing negotiations as NICE will use outcome uncertainty against companies, for example, inferring lower efficacy – and, under its QALY metrics, apply a lower value to the product than manufacturers can reasonably accept,” he said.

“It is imperative that the MHRA seeks alignment of pricing issues with a revised regulatory pathway for orphan medicines if manufacturers are truly going to be incentivised to focus greater resources into the development of those treatments for the UK market,” Morgan said.

Passengers who present printed boarding passes at airports will no longer be accepted to fly with Ryanair, the company has announced.

One of Europe’s biggest budget airlines said it was “moving to 100% digital boarding passes” from Wednesday in a bid to speed up travel and lower costs.

It said all customers needed to check in online before arriving at the airport, adding that 90% of its 206 million passengers were already doing so and using digital boarding passes.

Those who fail to check in online ahead of their flight will have to pay an airport check-in fee of up to £55, the airline confirmed.

However, customers who have checked in online but cannot access their boarding pass on their smart phone will able to receive it for free at the airport – previously there was a £20 charge.

Ryanair has said the change will make things more efficient and lower flight costs for customers, as well as being environmentally friendly.

With the exception of Morocco, which still requires a paper boarding pass, the change will apply across Ryanair’s entire operation.

Passengers travelling to Morocco will still be able to collect boarding passes at the airport.

Despite the change, the company will continue to have check-in desks at airports.

Speaking to the BBC, travel expert Simon Calder said most passengers were likely to adapt to digital-only passes but it would prove challenging for others.

“There will be people who are not necessarily familiar with smartphones, don’t feel comfortable about them or maybe simply don’t want a smartphone at all – they will still have to check in online,” he said.