Copper end use trends

International Nickel Ventures announced the discovery of a new prospective copper zone in the Sesfontein area, along a 26 km strike length within the Kaoko copper property, located in northwest Namibia. International Nickel Ventures is currently earning a 50% interest in the property from Teck Resources Limited.

Europe's No.2 copper producer KGHM (KGHM.WA: Quote) closed 2009 with a net profit of 2.5 billion zlotys ($843 million), in line with its guidance, raised last week as a rebound in copper prices capped KGHM's profit decline.

SANTIAGO, Feb 25 (Reuters) - Chile's Codelco, the world's top copper producer, said on Thursday its copper output rose 16 percent to 1.7 million tonnes in 2009, reversing years of dwindling production on higher ore grades at older mines.

March 2 (Bloomberg) -- Codelco, the world’s largest copper miner, expects to return to full output today after a magnitude 8.8 earthquake on Feb. 27 knocked out power to two mines supplying more than a third of its production.

March 5 (Bloomberg) -- Copper demand in China, the world’s largest consumer of the metal, is weak because of lackluster consumption from the power and cable industry, Tongling Nonferrous Metals Group Co. said.

Following the devastating earthquake in Chile, Anglo American is pleased to announce the donation of US$10 million (equivalent to just over Ch$5 billion), which will be allocated to projects to rebuild houses and schools and implement emergency water and electricity services. The company will work with the Chilean government to formulate the aid and reconstruction plans.

February 2010—Siemon now offers 40+Gb/s SFF-8470 4X Passive Copper cabling products. These SFF-8470 copper cable assemblies support high-speed interconnect applications such as high-performance computing (HPC), enterprise networking, and network storage systems. The low latency assemblies support data transfer rates from 2.5Gb/s to 10+ Gb/s per lane. Siemon’s 8470 cable assemblies feature a shielded wafer construction in which the signal conductors are directly attached to the connector’s contacts, eliminating a printed circuit board and enhancing noise-resistance to maximize signal integrity. The twin-axial shielded cable conductors are laser-welded, reducing cross-talk and jitter to support 10+Gb/s data rates. SFF-8470 die cast back shells and latches are interoperable with all compliant interfaces. The 8470 product supports a wide array of data protocols and interfaces, including InfiniBand SDR, DDR, and QDR, Ethernet 10GBaseCX4, and 40GBaseCR4. These cables also support FibreChannel, RapidIO, Myrinet, SAS, SATA, Aurora, VITA VXS, and XAUI/XAUI-2 IO interface links, as well as SONET/SDH. Product options include 24 to 30 wire gauges and various assembly lengths.

Xiangguang Copper, a copper smelting unit of chicken supplier Shandong Fengxiang Group is planning to acquire a stake in Australian gold and copper miner CuDeco, to bolster its raw material supplies.

Copper production, which reached 477,000 tonnes last year, will fall 9 per cent in 2009 – broadly in line with rivals’ cutbacks. However, it should rise to about 700,000 tonnes in 2011 after expansion work is completed at Los Pelambres, the company said.

Mitsui Mining & Smelting Co., Ltd., has, since May 2006 when PPC acquired a mining concession, been conducting a feasibility study for the development of the Caserones copper and molybdenum deposits in Chile

EU energy policy is a basket of a number of policies that are concerned with energy markets and energy issues. Since the 2007 Spring Council, the basket is based on three pillars: climate change, competitiveness and supply security. Let’s look separately and then jointly at the Kyoto, Lisbon and Moscow summits of this magic EU triangle.

MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA — China's demand for iron ore, copper, coal and aluminum will increase dramatically during the next 15 years before India takes the lead in its need for those commodities, global miner Rio Tinto Ltd. predicted in its annual report released Tuesday.

On March 16, 2010 a hundred years have passed since a rich copper ore deposit was discovered in Outokumpu in the eastern part of Finland. This discovery led to the establishment of Outokumpu Oy and a booming mining industry in Finland. Over the years, Outokumpu has experienced a major transformation, evolving from a mining and multi-metal company

People close to the Mongolian mining industry have said they believed Rio and Chinalco were working out a deal on Oyu Tolgoi, a copper-gold deposit that is a joint venture between Rio and Ivanhoe Mines of Canada.

Restrictions on the import of skills are forcing Chinese companies to suspend the building of badly needed power plants in India to rid the country of its crippling energy deficit.A Delhi-based Chinese official said as many as 10 Chinese companies had had to suspend work on power projects – viewed as a top priority by the Congress party-led government – because of a shortage of skills and difficulties in importing their own technicians from China.

China’s Ministry of Railways spent $88 billion on HSR projects in 2009 – part of an existing $300 billion plan to expand and connect all of the country’s major cities with a projected 10,000 miles of dedicated HSR lines by 2020.

SANTIAGO, March 30 - Chile, the world's No. 1 copper producer, said Tuesday its output of the red metal rose 3.8 percent to 394,742 tonnes in February from a year ago, reinforcing the view that a massive earthquake on Feb. 27 had no real impact on production.