Copper end use trends

Construction has slowed due to government purchasing restrictions on residential real estate as well as tighter credit. Housing inventories stand at more than 11 months worth of sales – their highest level in years – and in October residential property prices recorded their biggest decline this year, falling 0.23 per cent, according to the China Real Estate Index System.

The impact of lower aluminium and Zinc India performance was offset by higher copper business revenues.

In recent years, there's been a surge of energy harvesting applications in the automotive sector, with a host of technologies utilized, each characterized by different achievable levels of power. Waste heat recovery systems have attracted a lot of attention with several car manufacturers working on developing their own harvesting systems. Some of them are described below.

Group-wide and including the joint venture plants, Leoni now has 11 facilities in China with a total of about 6,000 employees. In terms of consolidated sales, which in the current financial year will amount to about 350 million euros, China meanwhile represents the third largest market after Germany and France. The Company has been operating for 18 years with its own facilities in China. To be able to satisfy the heavy demand from the automotive industry for cable harnesses and wiring systems, and especially to be able to supply for new vehicle models, Leoni is also setting up new production lines and expanding existing plants in other regions. The Wiring Systems Division alone currently has 12 capital investment projects, involving for instance plans for two new facilities in Egypt as well as one each in the Ukraine and Russia. Furthermore, there will be additional production halls in Brazil, Mexico, Morocco, Tunisia and Serbia among other places. After the expansion is completed, the Wiring Systems Division’s network will comprise more than 30 production facilities with a total of more than 550,000 square metres of factory floor space.

In its updated 5-year strategy announced today, ABB also said tight execution on cost and productivity—aiming for annual productivity improvements equivalent to 3-5 percent of cost of sales—will further contribute to increasing profitability over the period, along with targeted expansion of its service and software businesses.

ABB’s strategy is built around five components: increasing competitiveness by matching production to local market needs while driving productivity and quality improvements; capitalizing on macro trends such as emerging market growth, resource efficiency and climate change where markets are growing faster than global GDP; leveraging its leading market positions and technologies in core businesses like power grids and industrial automation to take market share; continuing its successful acquisition policy to accelerate growth in priority gap areas; and exploiting disruptive opportunities, such as direct current (DC) technologies, to enable a wide range of energy efficient automation and power solutions.

Meanwhile, the deal will nearly double Mitsubishi’s annual copper output to 250,000 tonnes a year at a time when some analysts are optimistic about the outlook for copper prices. Demand continues to grow but production has risen less than 1 per cent annually over the past five years despite strong prices, according to Macquarie Securities

China's production of refined copper in October rose 16.4 percent from year ago to 469,000 tonnes, after posting a 17.7 percent monthly gain to 479,000 tonnes in September, data from the National Bureau of Statistics showed on Wednesday.

Copper-67 has shown exceptional potential in the treatment of non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma as well as bladder, colorectal, and ovarian cancers. However, it is a difficult isotope to produce and has not been consistently made available in the U.S. This has restricted its evaluation in cancer research and clinical trials.

UK incumbent BT may well extend the life of its copper broadband network rather than switch to fibre for faster broadband.

Even as some countries continue to progress their plans, the resultant delays from additional safety checks, coupled with higher costs, has already prompted changes in estimates of the role nuclear power will play in the global energy mix.

The office based in Dubai has been opened to facilitate the growing demand for quality products to service the plumbing industry.