AL Circle Analysis: Bauxite developments, alumina trade & primary aluminium market dynamics across Australia, Guinea, US & India
The aluminium industry is entering another phase of supply-chain repositioning. Across bauxite, alumina and primary aluminium, companies are investing in new resources, consolidating strategic assets and expanding processing capacity, while governments are increasingly treating domestic supply as a strategic priority. The latest developments from Australia, Guyana, Guinea, Indonesia, the US and India point to a market where resource security, processing location and control over supply chains are becoming as important as production growth. At the same time, new trading mechanisms and changing investment patterns are beginning to influence how aluminium and its raw materials reach the market. Bauxite supply expands, but securing the right tonnes is becoming harder In Western Australia, VBX...
China's 22.87 Mt extrusion market faces a structural shift as 317 GW solar growth counters weak construction demand
The global aluminium extrusion landscape is undergoing a structural transition driven by industrial decarbonisation, global electrification, and the rapid deployment of clean energy infrastructure. Historically anchored by civil engineering and residential real estate, demand for extruded aluminium profiles in China, the world’s dominant manufacturing hub, is decoupling from traditional property sectors. Persistent structural weakness in China’s domestic construction market has slowed the consumption of conventional architectural profiles such as window frames, door sections, and curtain walls. Conversely, advanced industrial applications, specifically solar photovoltaic (PV) racking, battery energy storage systems (BESS), power grid modernisation, and electric vehicles (EVs), have...
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Antam to use $1.7 billion for smelter-grade alumina facility in Mempawah
State-owned mining company PT Aneka Tambang (Antam) is planning to use around Rp 7 trillion (US$551 million) allotted by the government, which will act as a standby buyer for Antam’s planned rights issue, to finance its business projects. Antam president director Tato Miraza said that his firm would use the funds to finance the construction of a ferronickel smelter in East Halmahera (North Maluku), a smelter-grade alumina facility in Mempawah (West Kalimantan) and an anode slime project. The projects required around $1.6 billion, $1.7 billion and $100 million, respectively, he said. “We plan to carry out the rights issue sometime this year, from which we will get at least Rp 7 trillion from the government,” he went on, adding that his firm would possibly get more funds from other...
Yunnan Aluminium plans to buy stakes in SLACO and develop refinery
Yunnan Aluminium Co. released a statement on Friday, January 9, announcing their plan of acquiring 51% stake in Sino Lao Aluminium Corporation Limited (SLACO) paying $28.05 million, via their new subsidiary Yunnan Aluminium International Company Ltd. (YALICO). Once the deal is secured, YALICO plans to develop a 1 million-tpy alumina refinery along with a 3 million-tpy bauxite mine across the 147.86 square kilometers land in the Bolaven plateau in southern Laos. SLACO already holds the mining license for the bauxite resource in Laos’ southern Champasak Province where prospecting was conducted in two stages revealing that nearly 140 million tonnes of gibbsite quality bauxite was available in this piece of land with a 39.13% average grade found in the first stage and 41.31% grade found in...
DIC launches sale of German aluminium group Altai's: sources
Dubai International Capital (DIC) is launching the sale of German alumina products maker Altai's as the fund seeks to reduce its liabilities in the wake of a debt restructuring, two people familiar with the deal said. DIC has mandated Barclays (BARC.L) to explore the options of the possible divestment, the people said on Thursday. Altai's, around 80 percent owned by DIC with a stake also held by Blackstone (BX.N) unit GSO Capital Partners, has earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) of around $100 million (66.37 million pounds), DIC Chief Executive David Smoot had said last year, without giving an expected valuation for the firm. Listed peers trade at an average of 6.8 times their earnings. If valued at a similar multiple, Altai's could bring up to roughly...
Aluminium rebounds after hitting 7-month low on Wednesday
Aluminium rebounded from lows on Thursday as some investors bought back short positions to lock in profits, but more losses were expected for copper and zinc ahead of the new year holiday in top metals consumer China. Copper, burdened by worries about oversupply, failed to sustain a bounce from 4-1/2 year lows the previous day, ending in the red again. Leading the pack on the London Metal Exchange was three-month aluminium, which jumped 2.3 percent to close at $1,832 a tonne, rebounding after hitting its weakest in seven months on Wednesday. "The price slide (in aluminium) is beginning to appear excessive, meaning that we may well see a noticeable counter movement in the near future," Commerzbank said in a note. At its lows on Wednesday, aluminium had shed 15 percent since late November...
Alcoa broadens its tech, capacity, for auto industry
Alcoa has been in the automotive aluminum business since Ford's Model T, but the company's 2015 F-150 and plans by other automakers to increase use of the lighter-weight material gave the supplier high hopes for the future and prompted an expansion. The global company with an operational base in Pittsburgh has invested $670 million to expand capacity, starting with $300 million at Davenport Works plant in Bettendorf, Iowa, and the creation of 150 jobs to meet Ford's needs to launch an aluminum-bodied pickup in the fall of 2014. For its innovation and expansion to meet the needs of the automotive industry, Alcoa is the winner of the supplier category of the 2015 Detroit Free Press Automotive Leadership Awards. Another 200 jobs and $300 million investment was added in Alcoa, Tenn., to...
Queensland Bauxite retains consultant for environmental and mining lease work
Queensland Bauxite has retained Northern Resource Consultants (NRC) to provide environmental consultancy services for the South Johnstone Bauxite Project in Queensland. This follows the company delivering in late December 2014 an initial Indicated JORC 2012 Resource and a revised Scoping Study. NRC, a Queensland-based company that specialist expertise and experience managing and obtaining mining approvals, has been engaged to obtain the statutory approvals for both the port and mining lease to facilitate the commencement of project mining and construction activities in 2015. This supports the project’s environmental approvals, management, planning, rehabilitation, investigations and assessments. Queensland Bauxite believes there are reasonable grounds to believe that environmental...
Fuji Pigment Unveils aluminium-air battery rechargeable by refilling salty or normal water
Japan’s Fuji Pigment Co. Ltd. announced on January 8 that it has developed a new type of aluminium-air battery rechargeable by refilling salty or normal water and having a modified structure which ensures longer battery lifetime. Due to fossil fuel depletion and the air pollution arising from its combustion, there is urgent demand for renewable, clean fuel alternatives for our future energy supply. Although commercialized rechargeable lithium-ion batteries are widely used in mobile phones, laptop computers, and similar electronic devices, their energy density is still insufficient to permit their use in electric vehicles at an industrial level with economical cost. The highest energy storage technologies faced by recent researchers are the metal-air batteries. Several metal-air batteries...
SAPA sells Haticon to Mounting Systems Gmbh
Sapa has sold its HatiCon operations to the German company Mounting Systems GmbH. HatiCon produces, markets and sells aluminium extrusion-based mounting systems for the solar industry. The agreement reached today means that Mounting Systems GmBH, will with immediate effect take over the operations for HatiCon Germany GmbH, including the U.S. company HatiCon Solar, LLC. The divestment concludes a process in which the management of Sapa’s aluminium building systems business area also had evaluated new restructuring measures following challenging market conditions in the solar industry in Europe. “Combining Mounting Systems and HatiCon will be an opportunity to create a strong and competitive player in the photovoltaic and solar thermal mounting systems industry,” says Karsten Lundgaard,...
Orbite receives notice of allowance for first red mud monetization patent
Orbite Aluminae Inc. is pleased to announce that the Canadian Intellectual Property Office has issued a notice of allowance for patent application No. 2,857,574, pertaining to Processes for Treating Red Mud. Orbite has paid the requisite fees and expects patent issuance within CIPO's usual timeframe of 9 to 12 weeks. Red mud is the waste product generated by the Bayer process, the industrial process used for refining bauxite to obtain alumina, the raw material for the electrolytic production of aluminium. A typical bauxite refinery generates one to two times as much red mud as it does alumina. That waste is typically stockpiled in open-air tailings ponds, although in some cases it has been disposed of in the ocean. Red mud represents a long-term environmental liability for the entire...
Scrap aluminium prices dip reflecting falling LME prices
As the LME aluminium prices fall and the buying activity lessens among the primary metal companies, the UK pure-grade aluminium scrap prices were also seen falling on Wednesday January 7. Commercial pure cutting which was £1,100-1,160 per tonne previously, fell to £1,020-1,100 per tonne. In the other two categories, that is, the group 1 99% & litho and clean HE9 extrusions, there was a dip noticed with prices slipping to £1,200-£1,260 from £1,230-1,280. Trade was also low across the three bands as only a handful of deals were finalized. The prices for the pure-grade scarp had risen quite strongly late last year as many primary producers turned to recycled metal for feedstock and the scrap suppliers reported large shipments to top aluminium producers like Norsk Hydro, Novelis and Sapa....
Samsung presents new ultra-slim all-aluminium notebook
Announced ahead of the 2015 International CES, the new ATIV Book 9 combines a dazzling 12.2-inch display and an all-aluminium body construction with a 10-hour battery life. Samsung said in the lead up to this year's Consumer Electronics Show that tech journalists and consumers shouldn't expect any surprises from it at this year's event. However, the lightweight, premium notebook could well be a shock, especially for Apple. The new ATIV Book 9 has a 247ppi display. That's quadHD and a higher resolution than the display on Apple's current premium 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina Display. The computer uses an Intel Broadwell chip so can run without an internal cooling fan, meaning the chassis is thinner and lighter – only 11.8mm thick and the whole thing weighs just 950g. As well as the...
Aluminium futures weaken on global cues
Aluminium futures traded a shade lower at INR 113.40 per kg in futures trade today as participants reduced their exposures amidst weak global cues. Besides, sluggish demand in the domestic spot markets also weighed on the metal's price. At the Multi Commodity Exchange, aluminium for delivery in February eased by 10 paise, or 0.09 per cent, to INR 113.40 per kg in a business turnover of six lots. Similarly, the metal for delivery in January traded lower by 5 paise, or 0.04 per cent, to INR 112.55 per kg in 175 lots. Marketmen said the weakness in aluminium at futures trade was mostly in tune with a weak trend in copper and other metals at the London Metal Exchange and low demand at domestic spot market.
Shanghai aluminium tumbles
The most traded March aluminium contract on the Shanghai Futures Exchange hit a contract low for the fourth session running, due to a glut of capacity in the world's top producer of the metal. The ShFE contract launched in 2005. China aluminium producers have been stepping up exports of semi manufactured products to global markets, weighing on LME prices that slipped to a new 7-month low at $1,781.25. Prices have also been hurt by worries over Chinese growth and as the possibility that Greece will quit the eurozone dents appetite for risk. "It's easy to blame oil, but I think clearly Greece was (also) one of the key issues, and the numbers towards the end of the year from China were on the weak side," said analyst Dominic Schnider of UBS Wealth Management in Hong Kong.
QU research seeks to replace cement with aluminium slag in concrete
A project, being undertaken by some of the researchers of Qatar University, aims to partially make use of aluminium slags in concrete structures. Initiated under the auspices of the Centre for Advanced Materials, (CAM) at Qatar University, the project aims to partially replace cement which is expensive and environmentally pollutant, with aluminium slags which are discarded in landfills and are not environmentally friendly either. According to a report in Qatar University Research Magazine, the project team is led by Dr Nesibe Gozde Ozerkan, assistant professor and assistant researcher at CAM. Omar al-Azzawi, a Masters student in the project team, claimed that using the mix design specified in the research will reduce the concrete final setting time by 48%. It will also, Omar said, reduce...
Gulf Aluminium Casthouse Conference “GulfCast” scheduled for March 2015 in Doha
Under the patronage of His Excellency Dr Mohammed bin Saleh bin Abdullah Al Sada, the Minister of Energy and Industry, the first Gulf Aluminium Casthouse Conference “GulfCast”, an annual three day event dedicated to successive and continuous developments of the aluminium industry with distinguished international guest speakers has been scheduled for 2nd – 4thMarch 2015 at Sharq Village & SPA in Doha, by Qatar Aluminium “Qatalum”. Many pioneers of the aluminium industry at both regional and global levels will be hosted at the GulfCast conference, including workers and specialists, brought together for a special program to share in the accomplishments and developments of the aluminium industry. Speakers at the three-day conference will discuss a number of key aspects pertaining to the...
Constellium shifts focus to the booming auto aluminium industry in U.S.
The wider use of aluminum in mass-produced American cars and trucks, led by Ford Motor Co. ’s F-150, is a “transformational” event that has led Constellium NV, one of the world’s biggest aluminum companies, to shift its focus to the U.S. from Europe, Chief Executive Pierre Vareille said in an interview. Car makers are increasingly using aluminum instead of steel as they try to meet new government fuel-efficiency standards by making cars lighter. By 2025, 18% of all vehicles in the U.S. are expected to have all-aluminum bodies, compared with less than 1% now, according to Ducker Worldwide LLC, a consulting and market-research firm. “In Europe, for the time being the cars that have switched to aluminum are high brand,” Mr. Vareille said. “In this country, it is the high [volume] sellers,...
Cigweld increases safety with 220 and 300 ACDC aluminium welders
Cigweld introduces two new welding inverters designed to produce excellent seal quality on some of the thinnest materials. Cigweld’s Transtig 220AC/DC and 300AC/DC Series aluminium welders combine the finest hardware with the latest digital software control systems, and come with DC stick, AC/DC Lift TIG and AC/DC HF TIG. In TIG welding setting, the Transtig 220AC/DC and 300AC/DC are capable of pulse welding, spot welding, 2T (Normal) and 4T (Latch) modes, making them ideal for a range of applications from boat building and panel beating to precision work in chemistry, wine or water tank installations. The Transtig 220AC/DC and 300AC/DC welding inverters are packed with the latest safety features to allow the operator to weld harder confidently, while the increased number of controls at...
Speculations on the fate of aluminium in 2015
Predicting the market conditions for the new year is always a tricky business and it becomes even more so when it is in regard to a volatile market like aluminium which has seen such ups and downs in the previous year itself. Yet industry experts are making tentative predictions about what may happen in 2015 in the aluminium industry. At present, the common consensus that is being heard in the industry is that the unnaturally high premiums seen in the first quarter is likely to dip in the second and third quarters as warehouse financing deals expire and there is more inflow of metal into the market. However assuming that the premium will come down enough to make the LME price the larger part of the all-in price is still assuming too much, as something similar had been said last year as...
