Copper end use trends

Survey of 24 major copper smelteries in China conducted by Ieforex shows that 90 percent of copper smelting enterprises in China are not optimistic about the future copper market, and are waiting for financial environment going stable.

Norddeutsche Affinerie (NA) (NAFG.DE) expects a global copper shortage to keep business conditions good despite the financial crisis, Europe's biggest copper smelter said on Wednesday.

South Korea's Samsung Electronics is considering cutting its business investment next year to cope with the global slowdown, the Korea Times reported on Thursday.

Commodity stocks slumped to fresh lows last night after recessionary fears took root across the London market, sending the FTSE 100 down towards the 4,000-point mark.

Thieves broke into an American Electric Power substation

Samsung unveiled the world's first carbon nanotube color active matrix electrophoretic display (EPD) e-paper recently at a conference in Korea.

The world's largest mining company, BHP Billiton Ltd, said in a statement on Wednesday that it was confident the industrialization of China would continue to drive demand for its products.

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.

Reuters reported that China's Hongkong Longquan Aluminum in Henan province and HMHJ Aluminum and Electricity have joined a growing list of smelters reducing output on low prices.

plans to build two solar cell lines by investing 220 billion won (168 million U.S. dollars).

"We have to make decisions now on how we see demand 20 years out," BHP uranium unit President Graeme Hunt, who's in charge of the Australian mine, said yesterday in Adelaide. "This is not a project we can move too quickly with."The cost of Olympic Dam, the world's biggest uranium deposit and fourth-largest copper lode, may rise threefold to as much as US$15 billion,

Codelco executive president Jose Pablo Arellano on how the world's biggest copper producer is coping with the sharp drop in commodity prices.

With airline fares hitting the roof and recession fears compelling companies to cut costs, the interest in video conferencing - or as some like to call it, telepresence solutions - is seeing rapid growth.

Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc., the world's largest publicly traded copper producer, said it may defer projects to conserve cash amid plunging metal prices and a freeze in credit markets.

HYBRID-electric vehicles (HEVs) could become cheaper thanks to a breakthrough that would allow inexpensive lead-acid batteries to replace the nickel-metal hydride (NiMH) batteries they now use. Similar battery systems could also be used to smooth out fluctuations in the power output of wind turbines.

Mr Albanese said there had been a marked reduction in Chinese commodity demand from the overheated levels of 2007 and added that the "vast majority of Chinese aluminium producers are now making operating losses."

"In the near term, the Chinese economy is pausing for breath. China is not completely insulated from an OECD recession and we will see an impact on Chinese exports. However, the near term slowdown of growth is substantially due to tightening of monetary policy introduced by the Chinese government last year in order to tackle inflation. Furthermore, we expect third quarter economic data to show an exaggerated slowdown, reflecting the postponement of projects during the Olympics. Looking further out, Chinese GDP will remain largely driven by the domestic economy and we expect industrialisation and urbanisation to continue apace with strengthening demand across a range of Rio Tinto products.

It's clear that you won't soon hear that an electric car is being powered by eel-inspired technology, but the main advantage of this type of chemical battery in medical purposes usage is that if it breaks, "there are no toxins released into your system. It would be just like any other cell in your body.", says Xu.

Unveiling its annual sustainability report last week, the World Steel Association said that more than 56 steel producers had provided the organisation with data on their carbon emissions, representing 60 per cent of its members' steel production and almost a third of total global steel production.