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Local news sources reported that Codelco, a leading copper producer based in Chile, received requests from some U.S. and European clients to cancel an undisclosed quantity of orders for copper cathode. A spokesperson from Codelco attributed these moves to increased global economic uncertainty. Amongst the company's 150+ clients, major customers include Nexans, Southwire, its German subsidiary Codelco Kupferhandel and the American Copper Partners. However, Codelco is not anticipated to struggle selling any stock originating from the cancelled orders due to demand from China.

Xinxing Zhunguan, a Zhejiang-based manufacturer of copper wirerod, plans to increase production at its facility to 165,000t in 2013, up by 10% from 150,000t in 2012. Despite low profitability at Chinese wirerod producers, an official at the company said Xinxing Zhunguan still plans to increase output in 2013 in order to enhance competitiveness. The company said it expects orders to be subdued in the run up to the Chinese Lunar New Year, but then expects a strong rebound after the holiday period. This is consistent with another report on 11th January from Reuters which cited several Chinese copper traders as expecting the period between now and the holiday to be quiet, followed by a strong rebound.

According to an official from Chinalco Kunming Copper Co., the Chinese wirerod manufacturer, the company produced 10,000t of copper wirerod in March, up from 7,000t in February. The official said that March's output of wirerod had risen because of a week-long shutdown in February for the Chinese New Year. However, output had still fallen short of the company's 13,000t target. Chinalco Kunming plans to produce 150,000t of wirerod in 2013, utilising around 68% of its 220,000t/y capacity. According to a report from Asian Metal, the company has recently settled its long-term charges for processing 8.0mm wirerod at RMB1,150/t (US$183/t).

Wirerod production at Hebei Dawufeng Copper has been temporarily suspended since early April in order to carry out maintenance. The company elected to halt production for a month in order to carry out equipment maintenance, owing to the currently sluggish wirerod market. Production at the plant, which has a wirerod production capacity of 100,000 t/y is scheduled to re-start in early May.

The Saudi Cable Company announced that it has secured orders from two of Korea's biggest construction firms, taking its total order value for the month to over SAR1B (approximately US$266.6M). The Jeddah-based supplier of copper cables received a SAR63M (approximately US$16.8M) order from Doosan Company, a diversified firm covering construction and engineering among other sectors, and a SAR56M (approximately US$14.93M) order from Hyundai Engineering. Both mandates will be supplied in Q1 of next year.

Emcore Corporation announced that it has entered into two new supply agreements for solar cells and receivers with a combined total value of more than US $40 million. The larger of the two purchase contracts is a multi-year supply agreement for solar cells, to be delivered over four years. The product to be delivered will be incorporated into concentrating photovoltaics (CPV) systems developed for commercial rooftop installations as well as utility-scale solar farms. The customers placing these orders with Emcore are targeting CPV deployments in the United States with a particular focus on the California market, Emcore said. Production for these orders has already started and approximately US $1 million of product is expected to be shipped in the present quarter.

Instead, America's consumption binge drew support from two major asset bubbles-property and credit. Courtesy of cheap and freely available credit, in conjunction with record housing price appreciation, consumers tripled the rate of net equity extraction from their homes, from 3 percent of disposable personal income in 2001 to 9 percent in 2006. Only by levering increasingly overvalued homes could Americans go on the biggest consumption binge in modern history. And now those twin bubbles-property and credit-have burst, and so has the US consumption bubble: real consumer spending fell at an unprecedented 3.5 percent average annual rate in the two final quarters of 2008. While the original excesses were made in America, the rest of the world was delighted to go along for the ride. With the United States lacking in internal saving, it had to import surplus savings from abroad in order to grow-and ran massive current-account and trade deficits to attract that capital. This fit perfectly with the macro-imbalances of the export-led developing countries of Asia, whose exports exceeded a record 45 percent of regional GDP in 2007-fully ten percentage points higher than their share ten years earlier, in the depths of the Asian financial crisis. China led the charge, taking its exports from 20 percent, to 40 percent of its GDP over the past seven years alone. The export-led growth in developing Asia could well be described as a second-order bubble-in effect, a derivative of the one in US consumption.

The US Copper and Brass Servicenter Association expects that orders in Q1 will increase despite the fall in December. It was reported that 57% of service centres are expecting an increase in incoming orders over the next three months compared with Q4 2010, up from 44% in November. However, promptness of payment may be an issue as 36% of service centres foresee payments to be less prompt in Q1 2011 compared to Q4 2010, up from 17% of respondents in November.

"Power Segment highlights The Power products and solutions business revenues stood at Rs. 461 Crores, up 61% Q-O-Q as conductor volumes at about 27,000 MT have started showing signs of improvement In the Power products and solutions segment, we have added new accounts in the European markets for power conductors and in India for OPGW products. Order book at Rs 2400 crores in Power products segment remains healthy and well diversified with exports nearly accounting for 40% of total order book. Power Transmission Segment East-North Interconnection Company Ltd. (ENICL) became fully operational with completion of the second 400 KV double-circuit quad transmission line connecting Bongaigaon in Assam to Siliguri in West Bengal which makes us the only private transmission utility to successfully commission the first private mega transmission project in the country. In Bhopal Dhule Transmission Company Ltd. (BDTCL) project, few more milestones were achieved with commissioning of two more lines and two substations taking us to nearly 60% completion for the project The current revenue generating elements of the first three projects have an annualized revenue run rate of Rs 287 crore which has shown a major increase from the annualized revenue run rate of Rs. 68 crores at end of previous quarter With Sterlite's investments completed in these projects, we expect the other 2 projects BDTCL and JTCL to be fully operational progressively in next 2 quarters."

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It was reported that 95% of a sample of copper wire and cable manufacturers thought that copper orders would decline in January, while 60% agreed that the copper price will hold flat at the same average price into the future. Enterprises are expected to reduce output in January as 95% of those surveyed anticipate a fall in orders due to the Spring Festival holiday (January 22nd-28th). Negative sentiment with regards to the eurozone's economic outlook was also cited as a key reason for expecting limited copper market growth. The survey results come despite recent announcements of positive U.S. and China manufacturing data.

Undisclosed Chinese copper fabricators reported that they plan to increase copper purchases after the summer. A representative from a copper commercial tube fabricator based in Henan province reported that the company is planning to buy more than 10,000 tonnes of copper cathode in September compared to a few thousand in July and August. In addition to term supplies booked late in 2009 for deliveries in 2010, the company will need to buy in the spot market more than 10,000 tonnes of refined copper per month in Q4 2010 because of additional customer orders. The tube maker has seen its best year yet, supported by strong demand from air-conditioner manufacturers. As a result, its copper commercial tube output is expected to rise by 15% y-o-y in 2010. A source from a copper rod producer located in Guangdong province said that some overseas clients were placing additional orders for September and October. The company uses 14,000-15,000 tonnes of refined copper per month and is likely to increase spot imports to meet extra demand. Another fabricator, which uses 70,000 tonnes of refined copper per annum to produce copper rod, plate and strip, mentioned that the Anhui-based company has a full order book for the rest of the year. Thin copper strip, consumed by the electronics industry, registered the strongest growth. Backed by strong demand, the company managed to raise its product prices to cover increased copper costs. In addition, Chinese power cable output has stayed firm and mostly unaffected by Beijing's policy controls on the property sector. Power cable production rose by 23.2% y-o-y to 14.1 million kilometres in the first seven months of the year. It was also reported that copper semis production increased by 14.5% y-o-y to 6.1 million tonnes in the same period.

As China's economic lifeline, the iron and steel industry used to be a black smoke maker and blue-sky killer in the eyes of many people. In 2007, SO2 emissions by China's large and medium-sized steel and iron enterprises were estimated at 756,368 tons, down 0.51 percent year-on-year. And the discharge of industrial coal ash was 382,275 tons with a 2.79 percent decline. Otherwise, soot discharges increased 3.02 percent, totaling 156,648 tons. The Long March of environmental protection and energy efficiency for China's steel and iron enterprises is still challenging, though many in the iron and steel industry have launched a green revolution in order to improve their old image. Wuhan Iron and Steel (Group) Corp (WISCO) is one such environmental protection warrior. As China's thrid largest steel and iron manufacturer, WISCO used to be a major polluter in Wuhan, capital of Hubei province. Many residents complained and criticized the firm, joking that sparrows would turn black after flying over WISCO's mills.

Antaike reported that most Chinese copper semis fabricators orders decreased in June 2011 from the previous month. Copper commercial tube, copper wire and copper wirerod output rose 10% y-o-y in H1 2011. However, output growth of copper sheet and strip in the same period was weaker. Semis fabricators' profits fell attributed to high finance costs and high copper prices. These factors have also affected refined copper consumption.

""We have developed several new solutions, which can provide clear weight and cost saving opportunities to manufacturers of such commercial vehicles as trucks, buses as well as agricultural, industrial and construction equipment", stated Dr Andreas Brand, member of Leoni AG's Management Board with responsibility for the Wiring Systems Division. "We are confident that we will grow our business with the CV industry by more than five per cent per year until 2025." Alternative conductors save weight and cost In terms of weight optimisation, Leoni can reduce the harnesses' weight by replacing conventional wires. Alongside copper wires with smaller cross-sections, the Company provides the CV market with a range of wires made of aluminium for the power segment, i.e. with a cross-section between 10 mm2 and 110 mm2 and even larger. Although the aluminium conductors have a larger cross-section in order to deliver the same electrical conductivity, aluminium technology results in a noticeable weight reduction. On its booth, Leoni will show its busbar, a solid aluminium conductor, which can be bent in three dimensions and weighs only about half as much as the conventional copper component. Leoni will also show various conductor solutions based on copper. These can be used where mechanical strength as well as electrical conductivity is required. For example, a copper wire with a cross-section of 0.75 mm² could potentially be replaced by a smaller wire cross section, such as a 0.50 mm² or a 0.35 mm². Thanks to the use of less conductor material, Leoni's customers can not just reduce the weight of their vehicles, but also benefit in terms of cost savings."

In an interview ahead of the CESCO/CRU world copper conference, Aurubis AG CEO Peter Willbrandt said that the company's US business is seeing the best flow of orders in 18 months and that the company's order book is full through May. The CEO said that the US has improved more than Europe and that Aurubis is still waiting for a stronger pickup in China, where he believed there had been a 50,000t destock of cathode in the past few weeks. Commenting on price expectations, he said that he expects copper to trade between US$7,500-8,000/t this year.

Copper represents less than 1% of the cost of a PV system installed. Is it really a cost-saving target?

The Chinese government released its composite manufacturing PMI, which showed improved signs of broad industry growth in January, as the index rose to 50.5 from 50.3 in December. A figure above 50 indicates an expanding industry. The results also indicated variance between sub sectors. The new orders index was 50.6 up from 50.2 in December, however orders for intermediate goods manufacturing and the production of finished goods contracted. The manufacturing export sub sector PMI was down to 46.9 from 48.3 in December, which suggests an ongoing shift from exports to domestic demand. The contraction in exports included the intermediate goods manufacturing and the production of finished goods product sector. The Official China PMI in January is greater than the HSBC China Manufacturing PMI for the same month, which was 48.8. HSBC's PMI was up from 48.7 in December and suggests that the Chinese manufacturing industry is contracting. The HSBC PMI survey includes a greater proportion of smaller companies than the official survey.