Copper end use trends

Copper stockpiles held in duty-free warehouses in China, the top user, may be re-exported after surging to as much as 350,000 tons from almost none at the start of the year, according to Xi'an Maike Metal International Group. "We can hardly find buyers for refined copper," said Luo Shengzhang, general manager of the copper department at Xi'an Maike. The company ranks among the country's three biggest importers, according to the executive. "China's got to export some copper from now and next year," Luo said in an interview.

Chile's state copper think tank, Cochilco, on Wednesday raised its 2009 average copper price outlook to $2.30 per lb from $1.95, but slightly trimmed its 2009 copper output forecast to 5.38 million tonnes. The think tank also raised its copper price forecast for 2010 to an average of $2.70 per lb from $2.10 per lb, citing dynamic Chinese demand and expectations of a recovery of developed economies from global crisis.

Polish miner KGHM (KGHM.WA: Quote) Europe's No. 2 copper producer, expects to boost 2010 production above the 502,000 tonnes forecast for this year, its chief executive said on Tuesday.

Marius Kloppers said the big mining houses had the capacity to meet the world’s rising demand for fuels and ores in the coming decades in a speech where he also sought to downplay fears expressed by industrialising nations over “resources security”.

Leading European industrialists believe the future of manufacturing on the continent will increasingly revolve around green products, often backed by government subsidies.

Canada's junior explorer Hana Mining CEO Mareck Kreczmer believes his company has on its hands part of one of the largest copper and silver deposits in Africa that can rival the Zambian copper belt.

Redbank Copper says it has made a new copper discovery at its Copperado prospect in the Northern Territory.The company is exploring the prospect as part of a 50/50 joint venture with Glencore.

Back in March, there was everything about a battery that contained antimony, sodium sulfide and magnesium. Because of patenting secrecy, any further public details have not been given, so what we know now of the battery’s components, like then, is that there are two metals and a salt involved. Update: if you watch the blackboard behind him, you’ll see that the “secret” is about Nickel and Copper.

LUSAKA, Nov 25 (Reuters) - Zambia's Lumwana Mining Co. Ltd., a unit of Equinox Minerals Ltd. (EQN.TO)(EQN.AX) plans to raise copper output through greater efficiency and also plans to build a uranium plant, its managing director said on Wednesday. Adam Wright, who took over from Harry Michael a fortnight ago, said at a news briefing in Lusaka that the company would in 2010 ramp up production to 170,000 tonnes from a projected 110,000 this year.

The future standard is expected to provide guidance to all parties involved in the consumer product supply chain (designers, manufacturers, importers, distributors, retailers, etc). It should result in fewer preventable injuries, promote consumer confidence, provide an international benchmark to facilitate access to international markets, serve as an adjunct to regulatory approaches, offer a systems approach to product safety, level the playing field, educate suppliers, and more.

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."

Said Tom Elliott, professor at the University Hospital Birmingham (UHB), the study leader: "The results of the first clinical trials in both Birmingham and South Africa suggest that the use of copper may assist in maintaining hospital surfaces free of bacteria and could augment cleaning programmes. "The findings related to the use of a copper biocide adds further evidence to the potential of this metal for fighting infection," he added.

Mr Sharrock says bonded internet connections are not yet available anywhere, but are "right on the edge" of becoming commercial. Customers would need a special broadband modem, capable of splitting and integrating transmissions over two lines. "The future is fibre," he says, but techniques to squeeze more out of copper lines would help the quarter of households that won't benefit from the Government's $1.5 billion ultrafast broadband initiative.