Copper end use trends

Anglo-Swiss miner Xstrata PLC (XTA.LN) Thursday said demand for copper remains weak in Western nations and any material recovery appears to have slipped to next year.

Last week, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics published Employment Projections: 2008-2018, a fascinating report with all kinds of statistics to help provide occupational guidance for Americans (apologies to international readers, but who knows, you might learn something). Even though my current profession is included in the ”high growth” category, I still found the data to be depressing, but not for the reason you’d think.

Mined copper production was up 36 per cent on the fourth quarter of 2008 with higher production at all operations, notably at Escondida and Grasberg. Refined copper production was up 15 per cent on the fourth quarter of 2008 following higher concentrate grades and a further improvement in performance at Kennecott Utah Copper. Mined gold production exceeded 1.1 million ounces in 2009, 141 per cent above 2008, attributable to higher grades at Kennecott Utah Copper and Grasberg. Production cutbacks were maintained in the Aluminium group in response to market conditions. Bauxite production was down one per cent, alumina down two per cent and aluminium down three per cent, compared with the fourth quarter of 2008. At the end of 2009 Rio Tinto Alcan’s annual run rate was nine per cent lower than at the start of the year.

Any organisation may claim to have developed a standard, but ISO warns that 'not all standards are created equal.' ISO is publishing a new brochure that clarifies the distinctions between international standards of the type developed by the ISO system, using well described and accepted principles and disciplines, and 'private' standards developed by industry consortia and other groupings.

Can we fix the infrastructure that powers our lives?

Copper demand in the main consuming regions outside China is improving but will not recover to levels seen before the global downturn until 2011 or 2012, the International Wrought Copper Council (IWCC) has said.

A giant Chinese aluminum company is in discussions to buy a minority stake in either Ivanhoe Mines Ltd. or its Oyu Tolgoi copper-gold project in Mongolia.

State-owned Hindustan Copper Ltd, which has expressed interest in bidding for the development of mines in Afghanistan, is also embarking on an expansion plan to increase its mine capacity from 3.2 million tonnes to 12 million tonnes per annum in this financial year, which started in April. The monopoly producer of the metal ore is set to invest around $985 million over the next five years in its expansion drive.

Total mined copper production decreased by 3% in the H1 of 2010 compared to the corresponding period in 2009. Lower production was mainly due to reduced volumes at Mount Isa and Ernest Henry as a result of lower grades and at Antamina, where higher mill throughput and recoveries only partially compensated for lower copper ore grades.

Previously called "344 superconductors," the new name reflects the product's ability to conduct more than 100 times the electrical current ("amperage") of copper wire of the same dimensions.

Unfortunately, huge high-speed rail (HSR) projects take time to get built and there isn’t always a lot of big news to share on this topic.  But with more and more high-speed rail projects around the world (e.g. in the U.S.), there’s more news coming out more regularly now.

High-speed rail is considered a key element of future sustainable transport, and no nation these days is embracing it more wholeheartedly than China.

It also sets out a vision for the networks of the future, beyond 2020, in order to lower Europe’s greenhouse gas emissions 5 times by 2050.

However, the standards committees are concentrating on cables with contacts at the end, with Europe the laggard. The European Commission and European standards organizations hope for a common interface in general use by 2017. Quixotically, they hope their standards will become global despite the fact that North America, China and Japan are showing more urgency, already pushing for their standards to be adopted globally. Nonetheless, there are no agreed and adopted standards anywhere for the fastest "Level 3" form of charging  -- top request for public places. If Level 3 can be made safe and affordable, charging some EVs in ten minutes is possible if they have the right type of lithium-ion battery.  Fastest charging means expensive hardware and installation at present, often with a large lithium-ion battery and ultracapacitor bank in the charger. Copying the 40MW delivery of a gasoline station is not necessarily feasible, safe or affordable yet. The forecast of the 2015 split between options is shown below. Discrete Level 1 stations will be modest in number because so many EVs will be charged slowly using a regular domestic power socket, the inverter being in the vehicle itself.Percentage split in numbers of EV charging stations sold worldwide in 2015. Level 1:    6 percentLevel 2:  80 percentLevel 3:  14 percentSource IDTechEx report "Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure 2011-2021"

100 km submarine cable will provide Malta’s first power interconnection with mainland Europe, reducing its reliance on local generation and increasing security of supply