Group items tagged

"Aluminum (or aluminium) is the world's most common metal by crustal abundance, making up 8.2% of mass. It's more common than iron (5.6%) and a whopping 1200x more abundant than copper."

"The composite can be applied by spraying or other commonly used wet chemistry processes and cures at 150-200°C. It is suitable for steels, metal alloys and metals such as aluminum, magnesium and copper, and can be used to coat any shape of plates, pipes, gear wheels, tools or machine parts."

"The copper industry is already facing substitution challenges from materials like aluminium and needs to use technology to help ensure larger-scale, more permanent switches are not made, industry participants said. A group of panelists at the Metal Bulletin and American Metal Market Copper Seminar in New York on Wednesday June 6 said that while technology is clearly an opportunity for the industry, there are still some risks. According to Freeport McMoRan vp sales and marketing Steve Higgins, much of the "easy substitution" - such as plumbing tube or transformer lines - has already happened. "Substitution is less than 2% of refined demand today… It's a bit troubling, but it happens," he said. "The bigger worry is that aluminium is going to make inroads into products that have high switching costs - ACR tubing, motors, or into some medium to high voltage power cables and the like that the manufacturers have to go in and put in a lot of capital costs to convert. Once converted, switching back becomes "extraordinarily difficult," he said. "That's the biggest risk to our market as I..."

"The retirement of experienced copper industry executives and the lack of trained technical replacements is helping to drive substitution and is likely to lead to more mergers and acquisitions as the industry adapts, senior industry executives said. A group of panelists at Metal Bulletin-American Metal Market's copper seminar in New York this week said that the copper sector needed to be far more proactive in attracting new talent and ensuring the gap in the professional supply chain is filled. "One thing that is driving substitution is the retirement of engineers that were very tied into the thought that copper wiring was the only alternative and that aluminium was unsafe," said Stu Thorn, CEO of Southwire. Thorn said the idea that aluminium was unsafe "almost became a psychological obsession" despite the development of new technologies to make it safe. "Now that generation of engineers is retiring, the new generation coming up doesn't necessarily have that same level of bias [towards copper], but what they do have is the drive to make more money, to reduce costs, and find cheaper alternatives," he told the seminar. "There is a shift..."

The Nikkei \nreports\n \nthat Toyota's newly established department for battery research (\nearlier post\n) is focusing on metal-air cells as the \nnext-generation battery technology for its vehicles.

Despite a slowdown in the global economy and a softening in demand for aluminium rolled products in some regions, JSE-listed aluminium reroller Hulamin expected global demand to increase this year. CEO Alan Fourie on Tuesday commented that the company, which exported about 70% of its products, had seen some softening in demand for aluminium rolled products in some regions, but added that demand for these products was expected to grow by between 5% and 7% this year. "Obviously the slowdown of the [global] economy puts pressure on margins, it is an economic consequence, but we are still selling into a growing international market," he said. Locally, however, the softening economic climate was expected to impact on sales volumes for the second half of the year. However, Hulamin expected these high-value products to continue growing as a percentage of its sales in the next few years. Fourie noted that five years ago, these products equated to just over 50% of its sales volumes, while their contribution was just below 60% in 2007. They now comprised about 64% of its total sales volumes. Meanwhile, Hulamin stated that its costs had increased by 16%, influenced by a 58% increase in energy costs, increasing alloying costs caused by magnesium prices rising from $2 000/t to $4 500/t, and increases in other metals. Excluding the cost of increasing energy and metals prices, the company's costs had increased by 6%. Fourie noted that while the rising aluminium costs did not affect its profitability, it did have an effect on its working capital. "We hold aluminium in our working capital. So when the aluminium price increases, the cash tied up in working capital increases and we have seen a significant increase in working capital during this period, because the rand price of aluminium has increased by close to 40% in the last six months," he explained. Further, Fourie did not expect the increasing electricity prices to have too great an impact on its futu

LONDON, Aug 11 (Reuters) - Copper prices slid to six-month lows on Monday as a strengthening dollar triggered a sell-off ina market already worrying about weak demand from top consumers China and the United States. Copper for delivery in three months MCU3 hit $7,315 a tonne on the London Metal Exchange, the lowest since early February, before closing at $7,330 down from Friday's $7,410. "The correction that we are seeing is really a reflection ofthe slowdown of the global economy," said Ashok Shah, chief investment officer at London & Capital. He said weakness in industrial production would continue to weigh on metals as demand was seen slowing and as more investors unwound long positions. "I would expect some more speculative money to be exiting."

The aim of this project, known as Sormen, is to develop a technology for the separation of scrap metal from electronic waste based on a multispectral vision system and incorporate it into a recycling plant. This new machine overcomes the limitations of current, essentially manual, methods that are labour-intensive and time-consuming, and which are unable to separate metals whose characteristics of colour, shape and weight are similar.

The world's metals producers are still looking to China as the panacea for all ills with the often expressed hope that the country's need to support the domestic metals smelting, refining and steel industries will be the saviour of this sector and supply sufficient demand to support prices in the West. Consequently Chinese data are followed intensely and the latest information suggests that copper, iron ore and steel demand are holding up well - indeed increasing substantially - while aluminium is flat and zinc and lead suffering. But Chinese data requires interpretation and can be misleading as pointed out by Macquarie's Bonnie Liu in her latest China Commodities Weekly research note, and she concludes that there has to be some doubt that the latest extremely strong figures can be maintained. The notes below are abstracted from Macquarie's latest China Commodities Weekly and give us some considerable food for thought.

Intraday copper three-month prices on the LME rose by 4.1% to US$ 2,940 per tonne on December 29th compared to the closing price on December 24th, affected by higher oil prices and the weaker US dollar. Increases in oil prices are correlated with increases in copper prices since investors see oil as a barometer for the entire commodity class. Then, the weaker US dollar makes metals cheaper for holders of other currencies. However, analysts remain pessimistic about the red metal due to plunging demand as the ongoing economic slowdown will continue to take its toll on the demand for copper.

KITZ Corporation has announced that it will integrate its two brass bar manufacturing subsidiaries with effect from July 1st. According to the plan, KITZ Metal Works will take over Kyoto Brass and brass bar production will be integrated at the Nagano plant, Japan owned by KITZ Metal Works. As a result, Kyoto Brass' plant in Kyoto, Japan will be closed. The decision is attributed to the global economic downturn that has been taking place since autumn 2008. Total brass bar output of the two plants in January amounted to 3,000t, down by 40% y-o-y. The company anticipates that demand will not recover in the short run.

That "evidence" relates to an article published by The Australian on May 28 which stated, "In Japan, the world's biggest importer of rare-earth metals, more than 10,000 tonnes per year about a fifth of the country's total annual consumption are thought to enter the country through a thriving black import network without which Japan would already be in a severe supply crisis, a senior government official said." We believe a black market exists, in this particular case, because of several actions taken by the Chinese government (by the way, the RE (rare earths) black market in Japan receives its supply from China). The biggest reason a black market exists however, relates to mining quotas and export restrictions. In addition, China has taken an active international M&A stance to make strategic investments.

CHINA will not approve new aluminum plants or expansion projects for the next three years as part of a plan to revitalize the nonferrous metals industry. The government also aims to create three to five major nonferrous metals companies by 2011, with the top 10 domestic players controlling 90 percent of copper production, 70 percent of aluminum, 60 percent of lead and 60 percent of zinc in their respective markets, the State Council, China's Cabinet, said yesterday. A draft of the nonferrous sector rejuvenation plan was unveiled in February when it was approved.

With a view to cutting operating costs, Mitsui Mining & Smelting Co. and Sumitomo Metal Mining Co. are planning to combine their copper and alloy businesses. The new joint venture will consist of equal shares of the two companies and will be Japan's biggest brass strip maker. Major end-use applications include terminals and connectors for cars and electronic components. According to the plan, the joint venture will cease some sales units and purchase raw materials on a joint basis. It is anticipated that annual cost savings will amount to 1B yen (US$10M).

ICMM has released the May 2009 issue of its Good Practice newsletter: Action for a safer world. It is themed around the need for sound chemicals management and looks to the UN's Second International Conference on Chemicals Management in Geneva on 11-15 May. This will be the setting for the launch of ICMM's own action plan on chemicals management for the mining and metals sector - Minerals and Metals Management 2020.

Nexans published its Q3 2009 sales figures and reported revenues of €1.27 billion (US$1.90 billion) compared to €1.69 billion (US$2.53 billion) in Q3 2008, a decline of 25%. At constant metal prices, sales in Q3 2009 amounted to €988 million (US$1.48 billion), which corresponds to a 19% organic decrease. For the nine months ending September 30 the company reported an organic fall in cable business sales of 17%, based on constant metal prices calculations. This compares with a 16% contraction experienced in H1 2009. Nexans said that lower building cable sales in Europe and Asia-Pacific as well as setbacks in the execution of high voltage contracts affected its sales figures. Energy cable revenues in Q3 were down by 13% y-o-y; those of telecom cables plunged by 19% y-o-y. In line with planned cutbacks in production capacity, electrical wire sales in Q3 were down by 35% y-o-y.