Group items tagged

"We have to think again about transportation. We cannot just continue down a dead end (cul de sac) just because it's convenient and avoids disruption"

According to this (marketing) conference, we will all be flying around in personal drones by 2025. Let's wait and see :-). One thing is sure: lots of change in the transport sector.

Chemists at the Univ. of Mainz want to use copper hydroxide nanoparticles to make smoking less harmful.

Wieland-Werke AG, the German fabricator of brass mill products, reported sales of 475,000t, down by 0.4% y-o-y in financial year 2010/2011. Turnover increased by 24% y-o-y to reach €3,287M and profits also rose to €45M in 2010/2011 after a loss of €6M in the previous year. The rise in turnover was mainly attributed to rising metals prices, while the company said that the increase in profits was caused by a product mix composed of a larger amount of value-added products. Wieland noted strong demand in the first six months of the period, which was offset by the Euro debt-crisis as a driver of significantly weaker demand in Europe during the latter half of the fiscal year. In addition, the company saw a fall in demand in Asia from Spring 2011 and continued very low demand in North America. End-use consumer demand was weak and impacted the electronics and electrical engineering sectors as well as vehicle production. Mechanical engineering was considered to be a bright spot in fiscal year 2010/2011.

Wieland-Werke AG, the German fabricator of brass mill products, stated that demand in 2012 began weakly. After January, orders rose only slightly, but demand from important markets in Asia and Europe declined, principally attributed to cautious buying as fears remained over the impact of the course of the euro debt crisis in 2012. In addition, the company is experiencing reduced demand from the electronics industry in Asia following the closure of several plants affected by the tsunami in Japan and flooding in Thailand. Wieland has also not seen any growth support from North America and is uncertain about the global outlook for demand in 2012 due to the unpredictability of the euro debt crisis.

The board of the National Agency of Electrical Energy (ANEEL) approved today (April 17th) rules to reduce barriers to the installation of distributed generation ofup to 100 KW of power (micro generation), and from 100 KW to 1 MW of power (mini generation).

Wieland-Werke AG and KME Group S.p.A., which are both leading European copper product fabricators, separately announced fabrication price increases. Wieland will introduce an increase of 5-7% by 1st January 2012 while KME increased its fabrication prices by 7% starting from 7th November 2011. Both companies have attributed the change to the rising costs of energy and the risk management costs associated with high and volatile metal prices, which could no longer be offset by productivity improvements.

Three plastic pipe system manufacturers, Pipelife Hungaria, Wavin Hungary and BTH Fitting (Tessenderlo Group), two of them leading European players, are suspected of being part of a price fixing cartel operating in Hungary

La Farga Tub France, a new subsidiary of La Farga Group, the Spanish copper semis fabricator, commissioned a new distribution facility to supply France with the Group's 'La Farga Tub' copper products. The copper piping will be manufactured at the Les Masies de Voltregà plant and will be 100% recyclable and bacteria-free. The products' intended application areas include: Sanitation, refrigeration, climatization, medical and industrial use. La Farga estimates that the annual consumption of copper piping in France is 30,000t.