
India-based KEC International Limited is pushing ahead with Phase II of its aluminium conductor capacity expansion, even as a difficult second quarter dragged consolidated profit down. The Q2 FY27 investor presentation, dated November 2, lists the expansion as underway in its Cables & Conductors business, one of the few segments that grew in the quarter. The update comes over a year after KEC’s commissioning of the first phase of the plant in Vadodara in February 2025, marking an investment of about INR 600 million (USD 6.33 million). The company has not disclosed the capacity to be added, the investment or a completion date. Explore AL Circle’s report ALuminium Wires & Cables - Insights & Forecast to 2030 for insights into aluminium applications, industry developments and opportunities...
Canadian aluminum fencing supplier PrimeAlux has appointed Shapes Unlimited, Inc. as its authorised US distributor, giving American contractors, fence dealers and builders a local channel to access its aluminum fence panels, gates and privacy screens. Headquartered in Mississauga, Ontario, PrimeAlux said Shapes Unlimited, based in North Jackson, Ohio, will manage pricing, orders and customer support for its products across the US. The arrangement allows buyers to source the company's aluminum fencing systems through a domestic distributor rather than importing them independently. Shapes Unlimited is a privately held fabricator and wholesale distributor of aluminum building products that has served the trade since 1996. Under the agreement, the company will make PrimeAlux's product range...
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Sapa’s Profile Academy is one of the most popular technical knowledge training exercises that the company organizes for external stakeholders. Another full year of workshops concluded with successful events in Argentina and the UK. Sapa established its Profile Academy concept in 1996 and has continually improved the scheme, keeping the style modern and the information fresh and forward-looking. Over the years, more than 7,500 people from Europe, Asia and the Americas have participated in Sapa’s Profile Academy. The two-day Profile Academy must include a number of mandatory sessions for the event to be designated as such. As an example, the agenda must have a group workshop which results in the development of a design for a product using extruded aluminium. Participants have access to...

Aluminium Bahrain B.S.C (Alba), one of the world’s leading aluminium smelters, received a delegation from Midal Cables comprising Chairman, Khalid Alzayani and Assistant Managing Director, Rashid Alzayani and some of their guests from Asia on December 10, 2015. The visit aimed to strengthen business ties between Alba and Midal Cables, a leading aluminium downstream company in Bahrain and Alba’s major customer. Commenting about this visit, Alba’s Chief Operations Officer, Isa Al-Ansari said: “As two of the leading industrial companies in Bahrain, Alba shares a longstanding relation with Midal Cables and we are pleased to meet their guests. This visit affirms our continuing commitment to support and strengthen our customer base. It was an ideal opportunity for us to introduce the delegates...

Ball Corporation recently received multiple 2015 Can of the Year honors for its aluminum aerosol packaging innovations. The ReAl® impact extruded can for Henkel's Fa deodorant brand won AEROBAL's World Aluminium Aerosol Can Award and a gold award from The Canmaker magazine. The impact extruded deodorant can for Laboratoires Venus Expert also won a silver award from The Canmaker. The Fa deodorant can, a collaboration between Ball and Henkel, features Ball's revolutionary ReAl technology, which utilizes recycled aluminum to create a metal alloy that exhibits increased strength and allows weight reduction of the container without affecting package integrity. Henkel's Fa can, which launched earlier this year, contains 25 percent recycled material, is 15 percent lighter than the standard...

Guizhou Xintianli Aluminum Foil Co. is scheduled to put online its precision aluminium foil project in Guiyang, Guizhou Province, in January 2016. The project, with total investment at 1.2 billion yuan ($ 185 million), is now in debugging process and has an annual capacity of 50,000 tonnes. Precision aluminium foil has a wide range of application. Accordng to the sources close to Xintianli Aluminum, the Guizhou facility will churn out aluminium foil in a wide variety of aluminium alloys, including clad composites. The aluminium strip will be produced in standard dimensions as well as custom made as per clients' specifications.

P&A International, a China based company that manufactures high quality parts and components, has been invited as a guest speaker at the Australian Aluminium Council conference in January, 2016. As a spokesperson for the company noted, the hot topic during the conference will focus on COP21, and how it will influence the Aluminium industry. "We will also cover topics such as innovative uses of aluminium alloys in die-casting and extrusions, use of aluminium in packaging industry and the latest developments in the Australian aluminium industry," noted the spokesperson for the aluminium extrusion manufacturer, adding that P&A International is a member of the council. "We are excited to stand in front industry professionals, many of whom are long standing partners and customers of P&A...

Novelis, the world leader in aluminum rolling and recycling, today announced a long-term commitment to the Cayuga Community College’s Fulton campus to launch an Advanced Manufacturing Institute, including an industrial maintenance technician program and an advanced laboratory and training center. Funded in part by an $80,000 endowment by Novelis, the Institute’s mission will be to equip students with manufacturing skills to develop a robust talent pool that will be required to fill the many jobs expected to be brought to the Central New York region. Novelis and other manufacturers are facing an urgent need in identifying and recruiting qualified personnel as these companies seek to grow in the region. An industry research report from Deloitte Manufacturing Institute concluded that the...

Lightweight metals leader Alcoa announced long-term supply contracts with Boeing valued at over $2.5 billion. Alcoa will supply multi-material fastening systems for every Boeing platform in its largest fastener deal ever. Alcoa also will supply ready-to-install titanium seat track assemblies for the entire 787 Dreamliner family. “Alcoa has positioned itself to win in a multi-material aerospace industry, and these deals are the latest proof points that our strategy is working,” said Alcoa Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Klaus Kleinfeld. “We are proud to partner with Boeing as it delivers sophisticated airplanes to meet the world’s increasing demand for air travel.” Under one contract, Alcoa Fastening Systems & Rings will supply advanced titanium, stainless steel, alloy steel, aluminum...

Aluminium Corporation of China Ltd (Chalco) has made great breakthrough in auto body aluminium alloy sheet manufacturing. After over two years of R&D, the State-owned aluminium major has achieved this feat, communicated Rare Earth Co., a wholly owned subsidiary of Chalco. In recent years, automotive sector has been increasingly shifting their focus on to the light metal for making critical auto body parts. The need to reduce weight of the cars and other automotives so that they become less oil hungry and emit less CO2 has been driving auto manufacturers' moves to tie up with aluminium companies for developing novel auto body sheet material made of aluminium alloys. Performance of 6016 series aluminium alloy sheet developed by Chalco can fully meet Shanghai General Motors’ highest...

The Slim plant in Cisterna di Latina will from January 1, 2016 be operated by Rolling Mills International GmbH under the name of SLIM Aluminium S.p.A. An after-tax book loss of 45 - 55 million euros will be realized in Hydro’s fourth-quarter 2015 reported results. The rolling mill in Cisterna di Latina produces aluminium rolled products, mainly standard strip and sheet, as well as plain foil. Through the agreement, Rolling Mills International GmbH has acquired 100 percent of the shares in Hydro Aluminium Slim S.p.A. Rolling Mills International GmbH is controlled by Quantum Capital Partners AG, a Munich-based investment company. The rolling mill has around 430 employees and a production capacity of around 92,000 metric tonnes rolled products per year. The plant was established in 1964, and...

Australia's Novaproducts Global has launched a new aluminium stair nosing product. Launched for the first time in Australia, the new Tiger aluminium stair nosing is specifically designed to conceal fixing, with architects not having to worry about screws being visible on the floor. Tiger aluminium stair nosing can resist impact from heavy duty traffic. A top-tier slip-resistant coating additionally protects the stairs from daily wear and tear. Manufactured from 6061 T6 aluminium, this epoxy-based product is compliant with all Australian and New Zealand safety standards. Available in 5m lengths as standard, Tiger is also supplied in custom sizes along with a diverse range of non-combustible colours. Key advantages and features of Tiger aluminium stair nosing include concealed fixing;...

China reported a decline in both volume and value of its aluminium alloy wheel exports in October. Export quantity fell 2.8% year-on-year (YoY) to 69,500 tonnes in October, and export value also dropped 7.3% YoY to $329 million. Outbound shipment totaled 660,500 tonnes during the first ten months of the year, up just 0.1% from a year ago. The US was the top export destination -51.98% of China’s export value - during January -October, followed by Japan and Mexico.

The ET Seminar Committee, through the ET Foundation and the Aluminum Extruders Council (AEC), currently is inviting nominations for the Maurice H. Roberts Award of Excellence, the highest honor bestowed by the Committee. The namesake of this high honor, Maurice Roberts, was a pioneer in the aluminum extrusion industry and one of the founders of the International Aluminum Extrusion Technology Seminars – also known as the ET Seminars. Established by the ET Seminar Committee in 1984, the Maurice H. Roberts Award of Excellence has been presented six times at the past ten ET Seminars, given to a professional whose accomplishments and contributions to the aluminum extrusion industry have been deemed exceptional. The first recipient was Maurice Roberts to reflect his outstanding contributions to...

In a recent announcement Tianjin Zhongwang Aluminium Co., Ltd., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Liaoning Zhongwang Group Co., Ltd, said the aluminium plate stretcher in its production mill has finished its trial run. The stretcher is imported from SMS MEER Company in Germany, and is a key device in the production line of aluminium medium-to-high thickness plates for the nation's 'large airplane' project. The success in trial run will not only break the technical monopoly from foreign companies on aviation aluminium products, but also mark as a significant milestone of independent domestic supply of such products for the 'large airplane' project. The stretcher is a key device in the production line of medium-to-high thickness aluminium plates in Tianjin Zhongwang. It integrates various...

Kaiser Aluminum Corporation announced that it has commenced a five-year, $150 million capital investment project at its Spokane, Washington facility to further advance the Company’s cost and quality leadership position and to meet continued demand growth. The investments will focus on equipment upgrades throughout the process flow to reduce conversion costs and increase efficiency, further improving the competitive cost position on all products produced at Trentwood. A significant portion of the investment will also be focused on modernizing the legacy equipment and process flow for thin gauge plate to achieve KaiserSelect® quality enhancements for these aerospace and general engineering products. In addition, the investments will result in further expansion of Trentwood’s manufacturing...

Innoval Technology (Innoval) has announced the relaunch of their website. The site, which has been completely overhauled and given a new design, focuses on how the company can help visitors from the aluminium industry. Whether a potential client wants to build a partnership with the company’s technical experts, work with them to solve their current production problems, improve product quality or prepare a business case for an investment, the web site explains everything Innoval can do to help. New additions to the site include a section on ‘Technology’, which showcases the areas in which the Innoval team has particular expertise, such as rolling, extrusion and continuous casting. Detailed coverage of the company’s government-funded R&D work also features, as do biographies of every...

RPC Group, Europe's plastic packaging market leader with a robust portfolio featuring glass and aluminium-packaging solutions, announced it is buying French bottle-top maker Global Closure Systems (GCS Group) for an enterprise value of €650 million. RPC has been on the prowl looking for deals in eastern and Western Europe over the past few years. The deal marks an exit for private-equity firm PAI Partners whose funds bought GCS Group in 2005 for €583m from Crown Holdings. Headquartered on the outskirts of Paris, GCS boasts footprints across more than 100 countries. The company specializes in manufacturing plastic lids for mineral water and milk bottles, as well as child resistant closures for pharmaceutical products. It was reported in October that a combination of trade buyers and...

Panasonic Automotive & Industrial Systems has unveiled a new series of miniaturized, cost-effective, aluminium electrolytic capacitors that not only save space, but also increase system reliability. The new FKS series features an increase in capacitance of up to three times when compared to the company’s most popular FK series in the same can size. For example, the new 25V 33µF FKS capacitor, which comes in a 4×5.8mm can size, uses just 62% of the space of previous generation parts; in fact the highest capacitance achieved by FK series in a 4×5.8mm can is 10µF. So, one of the new parts can replace three of the FK devices. Commenting, Dr. Martina Ciacchi, head of Panasonic capacitor team in Europe, said: “By increasing the capacitance density we simplify our customer´s design, enabling a...

Massive outflows of Chinese aluminium semis, as a way out against saturated domestic market, have aroused growing anger and barriers from overseas. President and CEO of the Aluminum Association of US (AA) and the Aluminum Association of Canada (AAC) recently wrote a joint letter to US Secretary of State John Kerry, asking the US to pressure China on carbon emission in its primary aluminium production. According to the letter, China should set a sub-goal to limit and reduce the overall CO2 emissions by its primary aluminium production, as well as commit to setting appropriate standards for aluminium production emissions and coal usage. Reuters reported earlier this month that the US Commerce Department has agreed to raise discounted anti-dumping duties on aluminium extrusion imports from...