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The annealing of the majority of copper-based alloys is not very demanding in terms of protective atmospheres. However, the protective atmosphere used can be critical to the apparent quality of the finished product.

Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc (FCX.N) sees a tighter global supply base for copper and strong demand from China and the developing world favoring the industrial metal's longer-term outlook.

"Very strong transmission cable demand in the United States and Brazil as well as a growing business in Mexico offset normal seasonal volume declines in other product areas in North America and ROW. In Europe, the Company experienced better than expected demand across the majority of its businesses and the achievement of project milestones associated with our submarine energy cable business. Our project related businesses by their nature have been and we expect will continue to be volatile in terms of their revenues and earnings recognition. While the benefit of a stronger fourth quarter in our transmission and project related businesses is welcome, our end markets and overall demand have only started to improve in many locations.

China, the world’s largest energy consumer, intends to generate 11.4 per cent of its energy from non-fossil fuel sources by 2015, up from 8 per cent today, under the terms of the next five-year plan. That shift is equivalent to moving the whole of Italy off fossil fuels.

Over the medium term, Japan is going to need huge amounts of commodities to rebuild the areas hit by the quake and tsunami. This will boost Asia’s regional demand.

U.S. demand for copper wire and cable, especially for construction applications, should remain suppressed in the near and medium term, according to a copper fabricator executive. Southwire Co. president Stuart Thorn told attendees at Metal Bulletin’s Global Copper Markets Forum in New York Wednesday that the outlook for one of the company’s core business segments remains grim. Southwire produces copper and aluminum residential, commercial and industrial cable and wire, as well as copper rod.

In ROW, our strategy of introducing a broader product range into developing markets helped to offset the impact of lower-than-expected volume across a number of countries. The uneven demand experienced during the second quarter is largely episodic, as the fundamental growth drivers remain solid, and GDP rates for many emerging markets continue to outpace those in the developed world. Sequentially, our second quarter results reflect the impact of stronger demand in Venezuela, Brazil and Zambia. In Venezuela, the company benefited from higher spending on electrical infrastructure as the country works to reinforce a weak power grid. In Brazil, our results reflect the aerial transmission shipments and the introduction of specialty products as the country continues to industrialize while at the same time preparing for the World Cup in 2014 and the Olympic Games in 2016. In Zambia, our results reflect the shipment of aerial transmission products as the government invests in expanding its power grid. In addition, we strengthened our market position and product range in Colombia, Peru, Australia, South Africa and Mexico. In Mexico, we recently qualified and supplied our first high-voltage cables. Our market penetration into Mexico continues ahead of expectation, and is supported by a state-of-the-art manufacturing facility with high-voltage capabilities ranging up to 225 kilovolts and a comprehensive line of products for electric utilities and contractors. Overall, our results in ROW continue to demonstrate the non-linear nature of our business in the short-term, as construction, mining and utility products are moved between reporting periods, government appropriations are authorized and infrastructure investment plans are advanced.

Pedal to the metal: Structural reforms to boost long-term growth in Mexico and spur recovery from the crisis

Three types of risk The expert group put together by the Commission has already identified three types of risks: Import risk, where raw materials are imported from a politically instable region or from a country where the market economy does not work. "That is relatively easy to do as the World Bank has put together governance indexes which measure the political and economic stability index of countries," the EU official explained.    Production risk within the EU, with potential problems such as land access. "If we are in a country for example where the population density is very high, where urbanisation is very high, obviously access will be weak," the EU official explained. Environmental risk, based on indicators such as air or soil pollution, where the impact of raw materials use is measured from an environmental point of view. "This is innovative compared to other studies," the EU official said. "We have just launched a life-cycle analysis to determine what the environmental impact is for each raw material in terms of exploitation, use, treatment, recycling etc., for air or soil pollution as well as emissions of greenhouse gases."

The ever increasing demand for electricity from consumers and industry is driving ambitious plans for the development of major power infrastructure projects in North America. For effective and efficient transmission of electrical power, with minimum losses, these new schemes need to operate at EHV levels. So by establishing this new plant Nexans will be ideally positioned to support these projects with high quality EHV cables designed and manufactured to meet specific local market conditions,” says Frédéric Vincent, Nexans’ Chairman and CEO. “This new investment also represents a significant step forward in increasing our footprint in North America and demonstrates our long-term commitment to this key market.”