Skip to main content

Home/ Copper end use trends/ Group items tagged mexican

Rss Feed Group items tagged

Glycon Garcia

Spain's Iberdrola To Invest €365m into Mexican Wind | Renewable Energy News A... - 0 views

  • Spain's Iberdrola To Invest €365m into Mexican Wind
  •  
    "Spanish energy company Iberdrola is to invest €365m to grow in Mexico's booming wind-power market at a time when other international firms are also rushing to muscle in Latin America's second-largest economy"
Glycon Garcia

Mexican Wind Power Moving Ahead | Shannon Roxborough - 0 views

  •  
    Mexico, one of the leading suppliers of oil to the United States, has increasingly embraced alternative energy in the face of dwindling crude output, infrastructure and investment. In response to energy and economic woes, President Felipe Calderón has pushed through energy reforms, pledging that Mexico will be producing a minimum of 2,500 megawatts of wind capacity by the time his term ends in 2012. So far, Mexico's progress has been impressive. In 2005, the nation only produced 3 megawatts electricity from wind. By the end of 2010, the country had 519 megawatts of installed wind power. And the future prospects look promising.
xxx xxx

Grupo Mexico 2nd Quarter Net Profit Drops 14% - 0 views

  •  
    Mexican copper miner Grupo Mexico posted second-quarter net profit of $452m Monday, down 14% versus the same period a year ago, with copper output down from a long-running strike. The company reported sales of $1.758bn, down from $2.089bn last year, as well as a 22% drop in EBITDA to $960m. A strike at the company's largest copper pit, the giant Cananea mine, has dragged on for a full year, cutting into production of the red metal, the company's primary product.
Colin Bennett

Mexico copper, silver output rise in September - 0 views

  •  
    Mexican copper output rose to 23,766 tonnes in September, up 6.5 percent from the same month a year earlier, the national statistics agency said on Friday.
Colin Bennett

Mexico copper output falls in August - 0 views

  •  
    Mexican copper output fell to 21,609 tonnes in August, down 16.7 percent from the same month a year earlier, the government said on Friday.
Glycon Garcia

Mexico clears way for private sector investment in renewables | reegle Blog - 0 views

  •  
    Until November it was virtually impossible for a private developer of renewable energy power plants to become an independent power producer (IPP) in Mexico. Article 27 of the Mexican Constitution precluded private investment stating that electricity generation for public use is an activity to be undertaken exclusively by the Government. Mexico's enactment of a new law for the use of Renewable Energy and the Financing of the Energy Transition ( Ley para el Aprovechamiento de Energías Renovables y el Financiamiento de la Transición Energética ) substantially improves the legal framework for private investment in renewable energy projects. The law regulates renewable energy electricity generation for purposes other than providing public electricity services. The law states that the use of renewable energy for electricity generation is possible for private use and any excess energy can be sold, but only based on regulations and approvals by Mexico's energy regulatory body, CRE .
Colin Bennett

Mexican copper output in 2010 seen at 250,000 tonnes - 0 views

  • Reuters quoted an executive of Grupo Mexico as saying that Mexican copper output will rise about 5% in 2010 from last year to 250,000 tonnes.
Colin Bennett

Alcan Cable de México opens new distribution center in Mexico city - 0 views

  • "The Mexico building construction market is an integral part of Alcan Cable's North American growth strategy for our STABILOY® cable products.  The expansion of the distribution warehouse in Mexico City demonstrates Alcan Cable's continued commitment to the Mexican and Latin American markets," said Jack Miller, President, Alcan Cable.At the open house, guests were able to tour the distribution center and meet Alcan Cable de México personnel and members of Alcan Cable's U.S. management team.  The facility features additional inventory capacity, redesigned cutting and packaging equipment, and a training center to host customer educational programs about STABILOY® cables.The company's STABILOY® brand of aluminum alloy cables have become the standard for commercial, institutional and industrial building applications in Mexico.  Alcan Cable de México utilizes a network of electrical distributors to sell its products throughout Mexico.
Colin Bennett

Mexico's Ahmsa moving ahead with copper project in Israel - 0 views

  • Ahmsa Steel Israel, a subsidiary of Mexican integrated steel producer Altos Hornos de México, is moving ahead with a project to produce copper in the Middle Eastern country’s Negev desert.
Wade Ren

The end of Bretton Woods 2? - 0 views

  • The Bretton Woods 2 system – where China and then the oil-exporters provided (subsidized) financing to the US to sustain their exports – will come close to ending, at least temporarily. If the US and Europe are not importing much, the rest of the world won’t be exporting much.
  • And rather than ending with a whimper, Bretton Woods 2 may end with a bang. In some sense Bretton Woods 2 has been on life support for a while now. China’s recent export growth has depended far more on Europe than on the US. US demand for non-oil imports peaked in 2006. One irony of the past year is that the US was borrowing far more from China that it was buying from China. Campaign rhetoric that the US was paying for Saudi oil with funds borrowed from China isn’t far off – though it leaves out the fact that the US also borrows from Saudi Arabia to pay for Venezuelan, Mexican and Nigerian oil.
  • If Bretton Woods 2 ends in 2009 – if US demand for imports falls sharply in the last part of 2008 and early 2009, bringing the US trade deficit down – it won’t have ended in the way Nouriel and I outlined back in late 2004 and early 2005. We postulated that foreign demand for US debt would dry up – pushing up US Treasury rates and delivering a nasty shock to a housing-centric economy. As Brad DeLong notes, it didn’t quite play out that way. The US and European banking system collapsed before the balance of financial terror collapsed. Dr. DeLong writes: All of us from Lawrence Summers to John Taylor were expecting a very different financial crisis. We were expecting the ‘Balance of Financial Terror’ between Asia and America to collapse and produce chaos. We are not having that financial crisis. Instead we are having a very different financial crisis. Catastrophic failures of risk management throughout the entire banking sector caused a relatively minor collapse in housing prices to freeze up global finance to a degree that has not been seen since the Great Depression. The end result of this crisis though could be rather similar: a sharp contraction in credit, a fall in US economic activity, a fall in US imports and a fall in the amount of foreign financing the US needs.* The US government is (possibly) trying to offset the fall in private demand by borrowing more and spending more — but as of now there is realistic risk that the fall in private activity will trump the fiscal stimulus.
  • ...11 more annotations...
  • Or, to put it more succinctly, Bretton Woods 2, as it evolved, hinged both on the willingness of foreign central banks to take the currency risk associated with lending to the US at low rates in dollars despite the United States large current account deficit AND the willingness of private financial intermediaries to take the credit risk associated with lending at low rates to highly-indebted US households.
  • But now US financial institutions are neither willing nor able to take on the risk of lending even more to US households. For a while the US government was able to ramp up its lending to households (notably through the Agencies) and in the process effectively take over the function previously performed by the private financial system (over the last four quarters, the flow of funds data indicates that the Agencies provided around $800 billion of net credit to US households). But now the US government is struggling to keep the financial system from collapsing. It doesn’t seem like it will able to avoid a sharp fall in the overall availability of credit.
  • It is now clear how the financial sector kept profits up: it took on more risk, as it shifted from borrowing short to buy safe long-term assets (Treasuries and Agencies) to borrowing short to buy risky long-term assets. Leverage in the system also increased (and for some broker dealers that seems to be an understatement), as more and more financial institutions believed that the US had entered into an era of little macroeconomic or financial volatility. The net result seems to have been a truly explosive concentration of risk in the hands of a core set of financial intermediaries in the US and Europe. Securitization – it seems – actually didn’t disperse risk into the hands of institutions able to handle it.
  • I hope that the process of adjustment now underway isn’t as sharp as I fear. The US economy gradually can shift from producing MBS for sale to US investors flush with cash from the sale of safe securities to China and Saudi Arabia to producing goods and services for export – but it cannot shift from churning out complex debt securities to producing goods and services overnight. Indeed, in a slowing US and global economy, improvements in the US deficit will likely come from faster falls in US imports than in US exports – not from ongoing growth in US exports.
  • But right now it looks like there is a real risk that the adjustment won’t be gradual. And it certainly looks like the flow of Chinese (and Gulf) savings to US households over the past few years has produced one of the largest misallocations of global capital in recent history.
  • US taxpayers are going to be hit with a large tab for the credit risk taken on by undercapitalized financial intermediaries. Chinese taxpayers may get hit with a similar tab for the losses their central bank incurred by overpaying for US and European assets as part of its policy of holding its exchange rate down. The TARP is around 5% of US GDP. There are plausible estimates that China’s currency losses will prove to be of comparable magnitude. Charles Dumas puts the cost at above 5% of GDP: “Charles Dumas of Lombard Street Research estimates that China makes 1-2 per cent on its (largely) dollar reserves. It then loses up to 10 per cent on the exchange rate and suffers a Chinese inflation rate of 6 per cent for a total real return in renminbi of about minus 15 per cent. That is a loss of $270bn a year, or a stunning 7-8 per cent of gross domestic product.”
  • Jboss — if some of the Chinese inflow could be redirected into investment in alternative energy, that would indeed be a win/ win. Some infrastructure bank style ideas have promise in my view — basically, the flow that used to go to freddie/ fannie could go to wind farms and the like. I would rather see more adjustment in china (i.e. more investment in Chinese infrastructure) but during the transition, if there is one, to a lower Chinese surplus, redirecting chinese financing toward new energy tech would be offer real benefits.
  • China likes 3rd generation nuclear power. Safe, lower cost than NG or coal, very much lower cost than coal with carbon sequestering, and zero carbon footprint. Wind is about 4X more expensive than our electric costs now. That’s in an area with consistent wind. Solar is worse. I don’t know if we can sucker them into investing in our technical fairy tales. Here’s a easy primer on 3rd gen nukes. http://nuclearinfo.net/Nuclearpower/WebHomeCostOfNuclearPower
    • Wade Ren
       
      is this true?
  • btw, solar thermal installations are so easy & affordable to retrofit onto existing structures, it’s amazing that there aren’t more of them here…until you realize that they work to decentralize energy. cedric — china is already doing it in china. they are way ahead of the curve over there. my partner brought back some photos of shanghai — rows of middle class homes each with a small solar panel on top. and that’s just the tip of the iceberg — an architect friend just came back from beijing and wants to move to china (he’s into designing self-powering structures and is incredibly frustrated by the bureaucracy and cost-prohibitive measures in the US).
  • I went to engineering school right after the Arab Oil Embargo, and alternative energy was a hot topic then. All the same stuff you hear of nowadays. They even offered entire courses on it , which I took. Then my first mini career was in the power plant biz, before Volker killed it with interest rates and the Saudies killed any interest in alt. energy with their big oil field discovery. For the last 5 years I’ve been researching what’s changed, and it is frighteningly little. Solar cells are still expensive and only have a 15% conversion efficiency. They developed the new cost reduced film technology, but that knocks down efficiency to 7%. Wind power works where there is wind constantly. Generators are mature technology and are already 90 some percent efficient. Geothermal, tidal, ect. work where they are available. Looks like coal gasification and synfuel is out because it makes too much CO2. Good news is 3rd gen nuclear is way better than 1st gen plants. Hybrid cars are good, and battery technology is finally getting barely good enough for all electric cars to be practical.
  • According to news report today, Japan’s trade surplus is less than 1 billion $ in September 08, a whopping 94% decrease compared to September 07. Does it imply that going forward Japan can not buy as much treasury as before?
Jon Barnes

Mueller Industries posts weaker Q2 earnings - 0 views

shared by Jon Barnes on 22 May 08 - Cached
  •  
    US speciality brass mill Ansonia Copper and Brass Inc. has announced that it will lay off 85 of the 102 employees at its Liberty Street, Ansonia, factory in Connecticut. The plant manufactures copper alloy rod and wires. Company President Raymond McGee said "it's a very, very difficult situation". He blamed the redundancies, on top of 76 employees laid off in April 2007, on the company's struggle with escalating costs. Since 2002 electricity costs have soared 239%, natural gas 200%, fuel oil 125%, and copper and nickel 500% apiece. Ansonia's other facility in Waterbury, CT, which manufacturers copper alloy tube is unaffected by the announcement.
  • ...13 more comments...
  •  
    Tough times in the US brass mill industry
  •  
    Dowa Metanix announces capacity increase Company announces new pickling line and facility renewal Dowa Metanix, the rolled copper maker of the Dowa Metaltech group announced it will invest around ¥2 billion (US$ 19 million) in a new pickling line and renewal facility during the current fiscal year which began in April 2008. The new pickling line is expected to begin operations early in the fiscal year 2009 and the new line and improved facilities are expected to improve the firm's cost competitiveness. The company then said it plans to expand output capacity by 40% to 1,200 tonnes per month by 2010 as it tries to improve productivity to increase its supply for connector pins and semi conductor lead frames.
  •  
    In the past few days world leading cablemaker Nexans has announced one acquisition, one new joint venture and one asset disposal. On the 30th May, Nexans acquired Intercond a leading Italian manufacturer of special cables for industrial equipment and subsea applications. The company had sales of €90m and employs 150. "This [€90m] acquisition fits totally in the Group's strategy by increasing the proportion of its business in high value-added special cables", said Gerard Hauser, Chairman and CEO of Nexans. On the 2nd June, Nexans released a press report confirming that it has formed a joint venture to create a wire and cable plant in Qatar, the country's first manufacturing facility. Qatar International Cable Company (QICC) is owned 29% by Nexans with the balance being owned by Special Projects Company and Al Neama Industrial Co. The new plant in the industrial city of Mesaleed, 40km from Doha, and will employ 210 people. By the end of 2009 it will begin manufacturing low and medium voltage cables for buildings and energy infrastructure as well as special cables for the oil and gas industry. This JV will generate sales of $150m per year by 2010 at current copper prices. Finally, Nexans confirmed that it has completed the pre-announced sale of its copper telecom cable plant at Santander in Spain to the British company B3 Cable Solutions for €17m. These three actions continue to refocus the group's strategy on priority market segments.
  •  
    Hot on the heels of the news that Nexans was to build a joint venture in Qatar to construct the country's first wire and cable factory , comes today's news that El Sewedy Cables of Egypt is also to build a $150m power cable plant in Qatar. The 30,000tpy capacity plant will start operating at the end of 2009 or early 2010 and will mostly sell to the domestic market. El Sewedy will own 50% of the company and Qataru based Aamal Holding will hold the remainder. El Sewedy is currently building new cable factories in Algeria and Saudi Arabia, with both expected to start later this year.
  •  
    Turkish copper semis producer Sarkuysan expects its output of copper products (wirerod, wire, tube and billet) to rise from 185,000 tonnes in 2007 to around 200,000 tonnes in 2008. According to the General Manager Hayrettin Cayci, "The market is forcing us to increase production as demand, particularly in Turkey, is very healthy", adding that demand came mainly from a Turkish property construction boom. "There's a big boom in demand for energy cables. Plus developed European countries have pulled away from cable production and they're mainly supplying from countries like Turkey". However, high copper prices have eroded profit margins so the company is focussing on more higher value products. He expected total Turkish copper demand (refined and scrap) to rise above 500,000 tonnes this year, from 450,000 tonnes now, and by 2010 he expected demand would reach 600,000 tonnes. Refined copper consumption is currently around 300,000 tonnes.
  •  
    The Exsym Corporation, the joint venture between SWCC Showa Holdings and Mitsubishi Cable Industries, has announced plans to expand its exports of ultra high voltage cables to the Middle East and South East Asia. In order to meet this increase in demand, a horizontal sheathing line has been transferred to the company's Aichi plant in Japan. This will bring the number of sheathing lines for ultra high voltage cables at the plant to three, once the transferred line begins commercial operation over the summer. Exsym also plans to renew one of the two conductor stranding lines at the Aichi plant with the new line expected to begin commercial operation in November 2008. With these new lines as well as an increased number of construction staff, copper cable capacity at the plant is expected to grow by around 200 tonnes per month to 1,200 tonnes per month. In the fiscal year 2007, Exsym posted revenue of ¥41 billion ($0.39 billion) with an operating profit of almost ¥2 billion ($0.02 billion). Exports of ultra high voltage cables to the Middle East and South East Asia accounted for around 40% of the total revenue. The company expects the increase in export capacity to increase revenue to ¥43 billion ($0.41 billion) per year by the end of the fiscal year 2010.
  •  
    Mitsubishi Shindoh is to invest Yen6-7 billion to expand production of copper strips at its Sambo plant in Osaka, Japan. This will increase capacity from 3,200 tonnes per month (tpm) to 4,200tpm by March 2010. In addition, the company will transfer 800tpm of copper strip production from its plant in Wakamatsu, Fukushima, Japan, bringing total production capacity to 5,000tpm. Mitsubishi Shindoh will also spend Yen6 billion to improve its copper alloy strip capabilities at its Wakamatsu plant. Productive capacity will remain at 6,500tpm, but with an increased ratio of high quality products. As a result, total company capacity will grow by 40% to 11,500tpm. Mitsubishi Shindoh is a copper and copper alloy fabricator within the Mitsubishi Materials Group. Japan mills have recently seen a strong growth in orders from the semiconductor, leadframe, connector and automotive industries, and clearly expect this to continue.
  •  
    Hindalco Industries and Sterlite Industries - the two privately owned Indian copper smelter/refinery/rod producers - are considering changing their domestic pricing mechanism for copper due to the dramatic rise in oil prices. At present, a uniform pricing system for customers all over the country is in place, however, the companies are mulling a change to ex-works pricing. This would mean that customers would be charged a different price depending on their delivery destination from the smelter. To balance the recent hike in fuel prices, they had recently started levying a Rs2/kg freight charge across the country irrespective of distance. Diesel is used in firing the furnaces while furnace oil is used in running them. The total fuel cost is estimated at 10-12% of the price of copper, with 1% of this being the transportation cost. The fuel price hike has not affected domestic copper demand as yet, but a prolonged period of this sentiment may hit many developing infrastructure projects badly.
  •  
    Jiangxi Copper said it expects Chinese refined copper consumption to grow at 8-10% this year driven by investment in the power industry. Power generation accounts for between 50-60% of all copper used in China. Damage to power generation capacity caused by this year's earthquake in Sichuan province will require a major rebuilding program which will also stimulate copper consumption. Chinese refined copper imports fell by 23% year on year between January and April, however, this decline was at least partly explained by a 23% expansion in Chinese refined copper production during the period. Wu Yuneng, General Manager of JCC Southern Copper said, "We need more concentrate and scrap rather than refined copper".
  •  
    Four major Japanese copper tube producers plan to reduce production by 4% year-on-year to 84,220 tonnes in total during the first half of the fiscal year 2008 (April 07-March 08). It is reported that demand for copper tubes has fallen because of the inactive construction industry as well as high copper prices. The construction industry saw a major slowdown last year after the introduction of new building regulations. All four producers expected this weak trend to continue. Sumitomo Light Metal is the only producer who plans to increase its output estimate, but only by 1% year-on-year. Kobelco & Materials Copper Tube says that it would decrease normal tube output for export to adjust the inventory level at its Malaysian operation. Furukawa Electric and Hitachi Cable said they would need to focus more on their commercial tube businesses. It is believed that the tube market has also been hit by substitution from aluminium.
  •  
    As of the 30th May, the Optical Cable Corporation acquired Superior Modular Products Incorporated (known in business as SMP Data Communications) in a deal worth $11.5 million. SMP Data Communications is now a wholly owned subsidiary of the Optical Cable Corporation. The President and CEO of Optical Cable, Neil Wilkin, said the acquisition would enable the company to expand its product offerings with more complete cabling and connectivity solutions, including fibre optic and copper connectivity. SMP Data Communications manufactures more than 2,000 products including cutting edge Category 6a connectivity solutions which offer a 10 Gig throughput.
  •  
    A subsidiary of Japanese company Sumitomo Electric Industry Group, Sumitomo Electric Wintec Inc, has recently developed a new type of winding wire. The HGZ is a scratch-resistant winding wire for varnish impregnation for compressor motor. The company has started selling this new type of winding wire. This new development improves the adhesive tendency of varnish which solves the problem of varnish impregnation in fixing coil from traditional scratch-resistant winding wire. It also improves the energy efficiency of motor as it forms coil with higher density. Sumitomo Electric Wintec specialises in copper-based magnet wire and it serves mainly the manufacturers of air conditioners, automobiles, refrigeration equipment and televisions.
  •  
    Luvata's ECO-Heatcraft division has launched a new technology for its air conditioning and refrigeration systems based upon using carbon dioxide as a refrigerant. The company believes that, as well as offering zero ozone depletion and less effect on global warming, the use of carbon dioxide can also allow more efficient operation of the system than traditional refrigerants. Luvata claims that, "The higher volumetric efficiency of carbon dioxide (known as R744) means that the cross sectional area of pipes used in heat transfer equipment can be reduced. As a result, equipment has the potential to be smaller, lighter, more efficient and better for the environment". The development of smaller diameter pipes with reduced wall thicknesses would tend to favour existing inner grooved copper tube based designs rather than emerging aluminium based technologies.
  •  
    Further evidence of the impact of the North American economic slowdown on copper demand has recently been published by the ABMS and government statistical bodies. North American copper wirerod production plummeted 9.6% year-on-year to 174,000 tonnes in April. Output had been on a downward trend but the magnitude of the deterioration in April has still come as something of a surprise. A year-on-year increase of 2.0% in North American output January had been followed a 1.0% fall in February and a 2.7% drop in March. In April Canadian output was flat year-on-year due to improving export sales to the US, while US production fell 9.8% year-on-year and Mexican shipments slumped by 17.5%. On a year-to-date basis North American wirerod production was 2.9% lower in the four months to April 2008. Weakening demand from the automotive industry, coupled with a resurgance in copper prices and the return of Russian wirerod imports has clearly led to a deteriorating market situation for domestic mills.
  •  
    Mueller Industries second quarter results highlight the tough times that the US brass mill industry is facing, but that companies can still operate profitably in a challenging market environment. The company's plumbing and refrigeration segment saw sales fall 11% to US$404m, while its operating profits dropped 32% to US$35m. The company blamed lower shipment volumes and lower spreads for the weaker performance. Sales at the company's OEM division, which includes its brass rod activities, rose 10% year-on-year to US$354m, while its operating profits rose 5% to US$19m. The improvement here is due to acquisition of Extruded Metals. Commenting on the results Harvey Karp, Chairman of Mueller Industries said "Mueller's earnings for the first half of 2008 were achieved despite the continuing decline in the housing industry, the sub-prime mortgage meltdown, the turbulence in the financial markets, rising metal costs, sky-high energy prices and a slowing national economy. Considering these adverse circumstances, we are pleased with the results."
Glycon Garcia

Climate, Energy and Environment News from Latin America: 1.3 - 1.7.2011 | Amanda Maxwel... - 0 views

  • n 2010, thermal energy displaced hydro as the major source of energy generation for the Chilean Central Interconnected System.  Coal, natural gas, and diesel supplied over 50% of energy consumed while hydropower accounted for 48%.  This trend is expected to continue in 2011 if current water shortage conditions persist. (El Mercurio, 1/4/11)  Last year’s drought created a 26% increase in thermal generation as compared to 2009.
  • The Regional Energy Efficiency Strategy initiative led by Bun-ca has reported an energy savings of 9368 MWh over the past six years, equivalent to 4992 tons of carbon dioxide, by working with 190 companies in the industrial and commercial sectors to become more energy efficient.   Recently UNEP’s En.lighten study estimated that Costa Rica could save 276,000 MWh and $27.6 million per year if they changed all light bulbs to CFLs.  The cost of this change was estimated to be $22.63 million.  (El Financiero CR, 1/3/11)
  • The Mexican government is planning to invest four billion dollars to build a one thousand megawatt renewable energy storage facility in Northern Mexico.   The facility will use a special kind of sodium sulfide batteries for the project which is expected to be completed in the next six years.  (Clean Techies, 1/6/11)
Panos Kotseras

Mexico - Luvata officially opened its new copper tube plant - 0 views

  •  
    Luvata officially opened its first copper tube plant in Mexico, aiming to fabricate tubes for the HVACR industry. The company sees the current downturn in the commercial tube market as a convenient time to establish its position in the marketplace and be ready when the market picks up. The Monterrey-based plant has started with small but steady deliveries since mid-June. Currently, the plant employs 180 staff with the plan to raise workforce to 250 when the full capacity level of 2,500t per month is reached in H1 2010. Luvata aims to supply several major clients but also expand its clientele to new and smaller Mexican customers. The company intends to differentiate itself by offering just-in-time deliveries, enabling its clients to run reduced inventory levels.
1 - 14 of 14
Showing 20 items per page