Due to a major contraction in orders intake, Wieland-Werke announced that it will introduce short-time working for 3,450 staff. Earlier plans of the company considered short-time working for 1,100 out of its 4,300 employees in Germany. The decision is attributed to very weak demand across all regions and industries, especially the automobile, electronics and construction sectors. As a result, impacted staff will work 20% less than normal.

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.

A cable factory located in Lyudinovo, Russia, has laid off 40 people and cut the wages of the remaining personnel by 15%. The decision of the cable manufacturer, which had recently started up a new production line, is attributed to the global financial crisis. Plunging copper prices are a major threat to Russia's economy due to the high dependence of the country on commodity exports.

Chinalco Luoyang Copper Co., Ltd. is working on a 100ktpy high-precision copper plate, sheet and strip (PSS) project. According to a survey carried out by Antaike, the project is expected to start operations at the end of 2009. Upon completion of the project, the company will have 200ktpy copper PSS output capacity. In 2008 Luoyang Copper produced 70,000 tonnes of copper PSS and 20,000 tonnes of copper wirerod and copper tube.

Nexans won a contract to supply most of the power, control and data cables in a project of Bombardier Transportation involving the construction of 27 passenger locomotives for the New Jersey Transit Corporation. The cables will be used in the production of the ALP-46A locomotives, developing a technology that Bombardier has been applying since 2002. Nexans cables meet the required technical specifications for fire resistance and efficiency, and they will be produced in the company's plants in Nuremberg and Monchengladbach, Germany. Delivery will start in April 2009. As Global Segment Manager for Rolling Stock Dietmar Steinbach reported, ''the main factors that persuaded Bombardier Transportation to place this major contract with Nexans are our proven capability to design, develop and deliver on-time and throughout the world a complete range of special cables to meet virtually any rolling stock requirement.''

Nexans and Bruker HTS announced that a high temperature superconducting distribution level cable project has been successfully completed. The project, called Super 3C, commenced in June 2004 and was finalised in December 2008. It was financed by the European Union and the investment amounted to 5.2 million euros. The cable achieves power transmission of 17 megawatts and it features second generation high temperature superconducting tapes.

According to CRU's forecasts presented at the 9th World Copper Conference in Santiago, global copper consumption in 2009 is expected to fall by 2 to 3 million tonnes. This represents a 15-20% y-o-y plunge compared with 2008. The severe contraction is attributed to the global economic crisis and the freefall that many industries, such as the automotive sector, have experienced. In the first two months of 2009 total consumption of copper and copper alloy semis declined by 32% y-o-y, while that of copper wire and wirerod fell by 25% y-o-y. In the same period, insulated wire and cable decreased by 30%.

Chinese imports of copper and copper products in February increased by 42% m-o-m to 329,311 tonnes. Bloomberg reported that this is the highest increase in inbound shipments since 2003. LME copper prices have jumped by 19% since the beginning of the year, reaching US$3,667 per tonne on March 10th. Copper prices have been supported by optimism regarding the Chinese and the US government spending packages. Infrastructure projects will boost the demand for copper semis, especially cables and tubes.

Fujikura Dia Cable (FDC), the joint venture of Fujikura and Mitsubishi Cable Industries, announced a 14% year-on-year decline in their building cables shipment for the period April-September 2008. FDC describe the current situation as a difficult one, especially due to weak demand. The manufacturer, facing decreased inventory value due to falling copper prices, has to sell at relatively low prices reducing profit margins. FDC cable shipments fell by 8% in 2007 and the initial target for 2008 was to grow back to the 2006 level. However, this was revised down because of sales results. Overall profitability is also affected by rising prices of insulating and sheathing materials.

Because of slowing housing construction and the consequent decline in demand for gas appliances and water taps, the demand for brass bars in Japan is falling. Demand is also being affected by the decrease in car industry activity. As a result, brass bar makers in Eastern Japan are planning to reduce production output for the fourth quarter by 20-25% on a year-to-year basis. August production in Japan was ''as low as 16,362 tonnes'', according to the Japan Copper & Brass Association. Monthly order receipt volume for the last three months of 2008 is expected to average just 15,000 tonnes.

Many Japanese scrap dealers have reduced their shipments to copper alloy fabricators by more than 20% in October due to falling demand. Copper fabricators have decreased their scrap purchasing volumes because of weaker semis output. A number of brass bar makers decreased their buying volume of brass turning scrap by more than 30% in October. From the supply side, copper scrap generation has been tight. Scrap availability has been falling since July and that has triggered competition between scrap dealers to maintain adequate levels of inventory, which resulted in a spike in the market price in September.