AlCircle sets the stage for Aluminium and New Materials Roundtable: A Review

The Roundtable Conference on Aluminium and New Materials: The Investment in Technology held yesterday at ITC Sonar Bangla Hotel, Kolkata, West Bengal, was a resounding success. Held as a part of the Bengal Global Business Summit 2017, the event saw AlCircle joining in as an esteemed co-organizer along with leading Italian industrial bodies Metef, VeronaFiere and ArtValley. The LIVE-streaming of the event on AlCircle Facebook page generated an overwhelming response. A large number of stakeholders from within the industry logged in to listen to the experts LIVE, and participated virtually by commenting, ‘liking’, and sharing the event within their circles.

Here’s your chance to catch up with all the discussions if you have missed out on the Live-streaming:

The discussion opened with Mr. Alberto Cavicchiolo, Director of Art Valley, introducing the panel of speakers. He began by saying how aluminium has ventured into diverse areas of everyday life and changed the face of engineering; to that Mr. Kamal Prakash, Managing Director of Jiwan Group, said that aluminium was indeed ‘the metal for now and for future’ and that its prospects of becoming the face of future engineering were endless.

Next to speak was Mr. Fabrizio Ciampoli, CEO of All Metal Services, Italy. He pointed out that Europe was now producing 4.5 million tonnes of secondary aluminium in a year (2016 data). Most of the aluminium produced is used by the domestic downstream and end user industries. In fact, the European countries have to depend on imports as well to meet rest of the domestic demand. Growing incidence of smelter closures was also responsible for the increased inflow of the metal from outside. Germany (consumption- 2.5 MT), he said, was the largest market in Europe, followed by Italy (consumption- 2 MT) and Spain (consumption- 1.8 MT).

Fabrizio pointed out, that there is an uptrend visible on the demand side for aluminium billets for extrusion of products in Europe. To cater to this demand spike, new operators are coming in- Vedanta, Hindalco and Rusal (erstwhile more focused in China) will be foraying into the markets, starting January this year, with revamped product baskets. Other historical suppliers like EGA are also waiting to explore the markets for value-added aluminium products in Europe. However, the future trade prospects of aluminium seem to be depending a lot on how the European Commission redesigns its duty structure.

Commenting on the driving forces for aluminium in the global industry Mr. Ciampoli said they were based on “the rule of threes” - growing population, increasing rate of urbanization, and improving living condition. All these factors combined were responsible for pushing the growth of infrastructure in aluminium production while eventually opening up the arena for new-age aluminium applications.

Mr. Ciampoli also shed some light on the Italian aluminium scrap industry which has been growing on the back of increasing domestic automotive industry demand. He said that aluminium scrap was actually a huge “bank of energy” and that the global industry could only grow more sustainably by banking on aluminium recycling like Italy has been doing since years.

Mr. Hamid Al Zayani, MD at Midal Cables, Bahrain, spoke on the emerging markets of South-east Asia and Africa. He pointed out how the Gulf countries were making progress on the path of naturalization. He then explained how socio-political factors have been playing crucial in industrial developments in all these regions. About the end user industries of aluminium, Mr. Zayani pinned a lot of hope on electricals sector which is slated to grow alongside transportation and building and construction sectors.

{googleAdsense}

Moving ahead from the macro-economic discussions, Mr. Janos Hungar, Pacific Area manager at Camozzi, steered the roundtable talks towards how a manufacturer thinks while making a choice of material before manufacturing high-end equipment. He said it was a crucial decision for the manufacturers to decide on “what material you choose for what components you are making” – and to make aluminium fall in that place more investment in R&D was needed.  R&D is all the more important to bring down the cost curve for aluminium producers all over the world, because with energy getting costlier their margins are being hurt rather badly in the present industry scenario.

Mr. Somsuvra Das, Regional manager (East) of Vedanta, seconded his views. He said R&D is crucial for adding more value to the metal and end users should be made more aware about the benefits of using aluminium instead of other traditional materials so that better traction is felt on the demand side.

The Aluminium and New Materials Roundtable saw eminent speakers touching upon many other key areas of aluminium business giving a 360 degree purview of the entire industry value chain. They in fact, built a case for the metal which is immensely versatile and endlessly recyclable, and hence, ideal for sustainable development.

Mr. Cavicchiolo announced that the entire roundtable debate will soon be presented in the form of a digital booklet. Do watch this space for detailed information on the publication.