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"SHANGHAI, Aug. 11 (SMM) - There is huge market potential to replace copper with aluminum in China's cable industry, cableabc.com reported. Market value of China's aluminum alloy cable approached 13 million yuan ($2.1 million) in 2014. However, China's rate of substituting aluminum alloy for copper in cable is just 3%-5% at present, well below 55% in Japan. Currently, the rate of using aluminum alloy and Al-Mg-Si alloy to replace copper cable has reached 70%-75% in the US, cableabc.com added, quoting data from Research and Markets. "

Moreover, aluminium is increasingly being used as a substitute for thick power-distribution cables.

Riccardo Garre the Chief Executive officer of KME Group SpA, the Italy-based manufacturer of copper semi-fabricated products, said in an interview with Bloomberg that he expects the company's production of copper and alloy semis to be 435,000t in 2013, unchanged from 2012, and 10% lower than in 2011. The Chief Executive said "to assume that in 2013 the volume will be exactly the same as in 2012, it means it's really a negative vision," although he did note some strength in flat-rolled copper and alloys used in the automotive and electronics industries. In the interview, he also said he believed slowing economic growth had prompted manufacturers to look for cheaper alternatives to copper semis, such as aluminium and plastics.

"Substitution of raw materials likely to increase next year"

Norsk Hydro, a Norwegian aluminium semis fabricator, has entered into agreement with Konveyor, another aluminium semis producer based in Turkey, to manufacture heat-transfer products that would utilise aluminium in substitution for copper. Norsk Hydro intends to supply precision-drawn aluminium tubes from its Danish Tonder plant to Konveyor, which will subsequently convert them into specialist capillary tubing using advanced manufacturing technologies. The finished products will be used in heating, ventilation, refrigeration and air conditioning equipment.

"To tackle its (critical) raw material dependency, Europe needs comprehensive strategies based on sustainable primary mining, substitution and recycling. Freshly produced flows and stocks of landfilled industrial residues such as mine tailings, non-ferrous slag and bauxite residue (BR) can provide major amounts of critical metals and, concurrently, minerals for low-carbon building materials."

Cumerio Belgium, a subsidiary of Norddeutsche Affinerie AG (NA), announced on 20th Nov its intention to close a copper billets and cakes production line at the Olen site. The decision was made based on the fact that production volumes in the department have halved over the last seven years and the line is currently losing money due to the low capacity utilisation rate. The company said that high copper prices in the last years had caused significant substitution losses to demand for copper billets and cakes, especially those for sanitary piping and roofing applications.

Finish copper fabricator Luvata intends to improve its supply chain with the prospect of economic recovery. The company anticipates that the market will recover by the end of Q1 2010 and recognises that it needs to prepare so as to regain market share. Senior Vice President of procurement Bob Kickham said that once the market starts to recover, copper prices may increase again. Given the ongoing fears of substitution toward aluminium, a more streamlined and efficient supply chain will provide considerable support to copper.

Entrepreneurs were queuing up to scour rubbish for anything that could be recycled. There was even talk of mining old landfills to extract steel and aluminium cans. And waste that could not be recycled should at least be used to generate energy, the evangelists argued. A brave new wasteless world seemed nigh. But since then plummeting prices for virgin paper, plastic and fuels, and hence also for the waste that substitutes for them, have put an end to such visions. Many of the recycling firms that had argued rubbish was on the way out now say that unless they are given financial help, they themselves will disappear.

Italian leading manufacturer of copper and copper alloy products KME said that its H1 output dropped 30% to 218,000 tonnes from 313,000 tonnes for the same period a year ago. The company said that there is 'persistent uncertainty and fears that an impulse to industrial activity triggered by a necessity to rebuild stocks will not be sufficient to consolidate recovery.' Demand for copper semis has been badly hit due to the economic downturn as residential construction activities are halted. Demand from industrial production is also adversely affected by a slowdown in investments in new plants and machinery. However, a fall in copper prices earlier in the year helped easing substitution threats from cheaper materials, KME said. The company previously announced that its consolidated sales fell 45% year-on-year to €898.5m (US$1.29b) for the first half of 2009. Net loss was €20.1m, compared to €12.3m of net profit a year ago.

Economic Growth, The Financial Crisis, and Peak Oil For several years, a swelling subculture of commentators (which includes the present author) has been forecasting a financial crash, basing this prognosis on the assessment that global oil production was about to peak. (2) Our reasoning went like this: Continual increases in population and consumption cannot continue forever on a finite planet. This is an axiomatic observation with which everyone familiar with the mathematics of compounded arithmetic growth must agree, even if they hedge their agreement with vague references to "substitutability" and "demographic transitions." (3) This axiomatic limit to growth means that the rapid expansion in both population and per-capita consumption of resources that has occurred over the past century or two must cease at some particular time. But when is this likely to occur? The unfairly maligned Limits to Growth studies, published first in 1972 with periodic updates since, have attempted to answer the question with analysis of resource availability and depletion, and multiple scenarios for future population growth and consumption rates. The most pessimistic scenario in 1972 suggested an end of world economic growth around 2015. (4)

"Present-day power distribution cables are heavy large gauge wires with limited flexibility. Designers could remove these cables and replace them with either a lighter substitute (to achieve the same amount of current) or gain the ability to push more current through the system. The additional flexibility could also mean the cables could be routed in ways not possible with copper conductor wires."