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Olin Brass, a division of Global Brass & Copper LLC since Global's $400 million purchase of Olin Corp. in November, is looking to increase product prices in response to rapidly increasing costs and softening demand from end-user markets. The price rises are one aspect of a wider re-organisation by Global in an attempt to offset rising raw material and energy costs. According to the company these initiatives have led to productivity gains of over 10 percent, freeing up significant working capital. However Global comments, "our input costs keep going up at such a rate we simply can't be profitable despite cost savings that we've put in place. We need to receive more for our product." Olin is also being hit by depressed end-user markets. As the slowdown in residential construction activities following the sub-prime mortgage crisis continues, demand in the fabrication sector remains low. The US Department of Commerce reported a 3.3% drop in housing starts in May, with building permits for future construction declining to an annual rate of 969,000. Despite the somewhat bleak outlook the falling dollar against a basket of foreign currencies has lead some copper and brass business that was moved offshore to return to the U.S. lately. "It's not a torrent of products coming back, but whereas in 2001 through 2003 we saw an exodus of business from here to China, this has slowed if not balanced out with some things coming back" according to Olin Brass. Olin brass is a manufacturer and distributor of copper and copper-alloy sheet, strip, plate, foil, and fabricated components in headquartered in Illinois, USA.

The solar industry and semiconductor industry are intimately connected. Both industries rely on silicon and both use much of the same processing technology and supply chain to produce their products. Nowhere has this connection been on better display than last week at the Moscone Center in San Francisco California, where the Intersolar North America made its debut in conjunction with SEMICON West 2008. The show provided an opportunity for those in the two industries to connect and allowed those companies that work in both spaces to showcase their collective efforts. According to Chris O'Brien, Head of Market Development and Government Relations for North America for Oerlikon Solar, holding the two conferences together gave companies greater exposure and showed the promise of the U.S. solar market. In recent months a number of traditional semiconductor companies including Intel and National Semiconductor have made announcements that they are making plans to enter the solar industry in one way or another. Intel spun off it's solar research area into a new solar company called SpectraWatt. National Semiconductor announced that it will be introducing it's first solar product, SolarMagic, that could raise the efficiency of residential and industrial solar systems. Kevin Kayser, Senior Marketing Manager at National said that he product will be targeted at installers and integrators and much planning went into the company's decision to enter the solar space. "Photovoltaics currently has less than 1% of the energy market, but we think it has potentially one of the fastest growth rates of any alternative energy source. Now certainly we're looking at wind, we're looking geothermal, we're looking at other sources, but from an electronics point of view we saw that we had the most immediate potential impact in solar photovoltaics," Kayser said.

As the company continues to expand in both established and emerging electronics manufacturing regions, the electronics group of Henkel announced a new partnership to extend its presence in South Africa, signing on PEM Technologies to represent its line of Loctite brand electronics adhesives in the growing South African region.Though it is not often considered a major electronics manufacturing locale, South Africa is, in fact, one of the fastest growing regions for certain sectors within the electronics production market. Automotive, military/aerospace and contract manufacturing are all seeing significant growth rates and Henkel anticipates that this will only continue for the foreseeable future.\n\n"Recently, we have seen major manufacturers in automotive and in military/aerospace either transfer production from Europe to South Africa or set up additional, dedicated South African production sites," comments Richard Boyle, Regional Technical Service Manager for Henkel. "And, growth in the contract manufacturing sector--particularly for telecom, IT and entertainment products--is even more rapid and represents the largest area of expansion for Henkel," Boyle continues. "Establishing a partnership with a strong regional distributor like PEM Technologies is critical to our strategy for growth in this promising region." Steve Eglinton, Managing Director of PEM, is confident the company's relationship with Henkel will only serve to further enable customers' competitiveness. "Without question, Loctite is the leading brand of adhesives for electronics manufacturing and we are very enthusiastic about \nrepresenting Henkel materials throughout South Africa," says Eglinton. "Henkel's philosophy of supporting the customer through top-notch applications expertise, technical service and materials-based productivity enhancing tools is completely in line with PEM's approach. With Henkel's leading materials technologies, we look forward to helping customer

There is no consensus among the analysts on Inmet Mining Corp.'s (IEMMF.PK) C$345-million hostile bid to take out its junior partner Petaquilla Copper Ltd. (PTQLF.PK). On the positive side, Raymond James analyst Tom Meyer wrote that by moving its stake in the Petaquilla copper project from 48% to 74%, Inmet would gain "important strategic flexibility" and lower the risk profile on the project. If Petaquilla Copper was bought out, Inmet and Teck Cominco Ltd. (TCK) would be the sole remaining partners and the legal action between Petaquilla Copper and Teck would presumably end. In a note, Mr. Meyer wrote: With two shareholders in the project as opposed to three, we believe it is safe to say that rational decision-making may likely become less of a bottleneck and the project can move forward at a faster rate. He added that by going to a 74% interest, Inmet could be in a position to potentially buy Teck Cominco's stake as well. Analyst Greg Barnes from TD Newcrest presents the negative view. He wrote that the economics of the Petaquilla project are "marginal" and figures that it would need a long-term copper price above $2.25 a pound for it to work. He also noted a "lack of clarity" on how Inmet could optimize value from the project. He wrote: Until Inmet is able to verify improved project parameters, we feel that the company is overpaying for a project that has less than compelling economics. Over at UBS Securities, analyst Onno Rutten's opinion is a little more mixed. He thinks that Inmet's C$2.00-a-share offer for Petaquilla Copper is "a steep premium," but would accelerate the project's development if it is successful. That could unlock value for Inmet. However, Mr. Rutten shares Mr. Barnes' concerns about the risks of the project; he pointed out that Inmet, a C$3-billion company, is trying to build a project that costs close to C$4-billion. He also said that Petaquilla needs strong copper prices to be economic. But he wrote that the financi

Johnson Controls, a global leader in building efficiency, announced the new LX Series of air conditioners and heat pumps by York, its leading air conditioning, heating, refrigeration, and ventilating company. They feature a MicroChannel coil with enhanced heat transfer characteristics, enabling them to achieve the desired performance levels with less coil surface area than competitive condensers and up to 50 percent less refrigerant. The units are available with environmentally friendly R-410A refrigerant as well as R-22. 14.5 SEER LX Series air conditioners use a compressor blanket and swept-wing fan blade for quieter operation. 15+ SEER can be achieved when the air conditioner is matched with a variable-speed air handler or gas furnace. A fully louvered steel coil guard, corner posts and a polymer mesh protect the condensing coils from damage. The unit's heavy-duty cabinet is made of powder-painted steel that resists corrosion and rust creep.\n\n\n\n\nIn addition, the MicroChannel coil offers better galvanic corrosion resistance than conventional coils. In testing, the coil withstood 7,000 hours of salt spray with a higher success rate than conventional coils at just 1,000 hours, making the units particularly desirable for seacoast applications, reveals the company's press release.\n\n

South African smelting technology developer Tenova Pyromet is increasing its presence around the globe through a growing number of large projects and the continual development and improvement of its technologies. Formerly known as Pyromet, Tenova Pyromet is now part of the multinational Tenova group of industrial companies, with which Tenova Pyromet has the advantage of being closely networked. When Italian holding company Tenova bought Pyromet in September 2006, the company changed its name and acquired the benefit of having Tenova stand surety for the company's credit line. This allowed for growth within Tenova Pyromet at a rate previously unexperienced by the company, owing to the unfreezing of large sums of financial resources.

The International Copper Promotion Council (ICPC) is expecting Indian demand growth to be cut by almost half, to 8-9 percent this fiscal year, down from an average of 15% over the past two years. Strong industrial growth, residential construction and consumer spending have spurred on demand in Asia's third-largest economy, with copper consumption reaching 512,000t in 2007. However, rising inflation, and the subsequent hike in interest rates, looks set to cool demand growth this year. Industrial growth for June was reported at 5.4%, nearly half what it was in 2007. "The consumption of copper -based appliances in the white goods segment will slow down due to a reduced rate of growth in disposable incomes. This will also be a dampener on copper consumption," said a member of the ICPC in India. Ongoing government investment in power infrastructure and a growing emphasis on more energy-efficient appliances will protect demand, according to the ICPC, "partly cushioning the impact of a moderating economy."

It has suffered a savage de-rating in the past couple of months, going from stock market darling to pariah. The Datastream UK mining index has fallen 30 per cent since the start of July and over the past couple of weeks the selling has accelerated. Halfway through September and the mining sector has already witnessed its sharpest monthly decline since 1997, according to Cazenove

Generally speaking, richer nations want permit allotments that track historic emissions rates - essentially locking in their economic advantage by awarding permits based on how much a country is already emitting. Developing countries, in contrast, want permits allocated according to population size, with every person on the planet getting equal emissions rights.

According to a new technical market research report from BCC Research, the domestic market for wind turbine components and systems will be worth $60.9 billion in 2013. This represents an increase from the 2007 market value of $7.9 billion and the estimated 2008 market value of $11.2 billion. The compound annual growth rate (CAGR) between 2008 and 2013 is expected to be 40.0%. \n\nThe market is analyzed by state and includes the top ten spenders on wind turbine technology: Texas, California, Iowa, Minnesota, Washington, Oregon, Colorado, New York, Kansas and Illinois. Texas has the largest statewide expenditure, exceeding $2.4 billion in 2007 and an estimated $3.0 billion in 2008. This should grow at a CAGR of 38.0% to reach $15.2 billion in 2013. \n

India's Department of Scientific and Industrial Research released a study this week that says e-waste is growing at a rate of 10 percent a year in India, with 95 percent headed to urban slums for segregating,

Top Trends for 2009: On our GloboTrends wiki homepage, we will keep an updated list of global macro trends that we think are the most important to keep an eye on. Some of this list are statistically unlikely to occur, but if they did, it could cause global disruption. These unlikely events were dubbed Black Swan's in a book by Nassim Nicholas Taleb , or might be called the "fat tail" probability in statistics. Others trends we are watching in the GloboTrends wiki are currently ongoing right now (such as our coverage of the credit crisis, deleveraging, margin calls, etc), and we will talk about how they happened, and predict their likely outcome. The format of a wiki makes the document dynamic, so any of our community is welcome to help shape our views of these important developments. Please log in to our wiki, and feel free to comment... In no particular order, here are the global macro trends that we think will be most significant in the coming year (2009): 1. credit crisis of 2007/08 will continue on into 2009...this one is clear...but, how long will it last? how will it fundamentally change international finance? Add your comments to our wiki... 2. fiscal stimulus and crisis recovery 2009 3. deleveraging of Financial markets will continue. In my opinion, this is the most destructive of all the trends. 4. Risk of deflation in the US as Fed Funds target rate approaches zero (other analysts see the opposite risk of potential hyper inflation). Add your comments.. 5. more... add to this list.. Predictions-for-2009

Amid the ongoing global economic slowdown, the construction of power grid projects in China is proceeding well, and demand for electrical wire and cable is expected to remain robust. However, even though power consumption has exhibited a growing trend, the month-by-month growth rate has slowed. As a result, copper semis related to electrical equipment have currently shown bearish demand signals. For the first 10 months of 2008, newly built power supply capacity amounted to 58.462m KW, while newly built capacity in October declined by 73% year-on-year.

This evolution made sense at first, because power stations were costlier and less reliable than the grid, so by backing each other up through the grid and melding customers' diverse loads, they could save capacity and achieve reliability. But these assumptions have reversed: central thermal power plants now cost less than the grid, and are so reliable that about 98 percent to 99 percent of all power failures originate in the grid. Thus the original architecture is raising, not lowering, costs and failure rates: cheap and reliable power must now be made at or near customers.

According to the Index of Industrial Production figures released on Thursday, while the manufacturing sector growth rate slipped from 12.4% to 7.5% in the month, power generation recorded a sharper decline from 8.7% to 1.4%. The mining sector, however, registered robust growth in April, moving up to 8.6% from 2.6% in the corresponding period last year.

With the price of steel rising at unprecedented rates, aluminum can be an attractive alternative in many design applications.

About 2 million tonnes of China's 4.6 million tonnes of refined copper capacity are reducing production rates and cuts may continue through the first quarter of next year, smelter officials said on Tuesday.

S&P is factoring into its mining sector credit ratings a weakening of demand for mining and metals in Europe and the United States "and concerns that this will have a flow-on effect to other emerging markets."

TOKYO: India will achieve a GDP growth rate of 7.5% to 8% this year despite the current global economic turmoil, which has only partially affected the country, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has said.

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.