Asian aluminium premiums are facing more pressure ahead of Q4 talks. CRU’s Asia CIF aluminium premium is now USD 202 per tonne, well below the USD 395 per tonne Main Japanese Port (MJP) Q3 benchmark. MJP Q4 offers have also dropped sharply. They fell from USD 325 per tonne in early September to USD 245–260 per tonne as the new quarter approaches. This shows weaker sentiment in the market. Aluminium premiums are under pressure across Asia, especially in Korea, Malaysia and Taiwan. These markets are more exposed to spot price changes, so premiums can move quickly when supply or demand changes. Explore the production, demand and consumption forecasts of bauxite and alumina in our report: " Global Bauxite & Alumina Market Forecast to 2036: Supply–Demand, Trade Flows & Price Outlook " Premiums...
Rio Tinto is connecting its Kitimat aluminum production with a new British Columbia-based supply chain through a long-term agreement with RevoCast Aluminum Billets Ltd., under which aluminum from BC Works will be combined with recycled aluminum to produce billet for North American manufacturers. Announced on September 28, the agreement gives Rio Tinto exclusive marketing rights for aluminum billet produced at RevoCast’s newly commissioned Langley casting facility. The operation combines primary aluminum from BC Works with recycled aluminum processed by RevoCast. Explore the production, demand and consumption forecasts of bauxite and alumina in our report: “ Global Bauxite & Alumina Market Forecast to 2036: Supply–Demand, Trade Flows & Price Outlook ” The deal, however, will not change...
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Russia's United Company Rusal, the world's largest aluminium producer, is urging the London Metal Exchange to leave its controversial warehousing rules unchanged or risk damaging the whole market, Deputy CEO Oleg Mukhamedshin said on Tuesday. The LME, the world's biggest marketplace for industrial metals trading, has proposed rules that would force warehouses to release more stocks than they take in if delays of more than three months build up. Rusal and U.S.-based Alcoa have already called on the LME to release more detailed data on long and short positions as well as inventories, and both want the exchange to delay a decision. The metals warehousing business has stoked controversy as warehouse firms have made money by building up stocks and allowing queues to grow for clients seeking to...
Aluminium major Hindalco Industries witnessed a phenomenal rise of over 44 per cent in less than three months along with other metal counters. The rally has been mainly due to reports of pick up in economic activity in China and hopes of recovery in the US and Europe. According to analysts, Hindalco may benefit from its Novelis business, but back home slow domestic demand may play a spoilsport. Two brokerages have recently come out with bullish and bearish recommendation on the stock. The recent one is by CLSA which has downgraded the stock to 'Sell' and sees over 20 per cent downside. Last month, JP Morgan had maintained its Overweight rating on the stock and increased target price to Rs 155, from earlier Rs 144. CLSA is of the view that the company's Mahan and Aditya aluminium smelters...
Former Dow Industrials member Alcoa (AA) unofficially kicked off earnings season on a cautiously optimistic note on Tuesday by swinging to a stronger-than-expected third-quarter profit despite a 7% drop in aluminum prices. Shares of the Pittsburgh-based aluminum maker, which was recently booted from the blue-chip index, rallied about 2% on the earnings beat. The results highlight Alcoa’s efforts to slash costs and reduce capacity in an effort to improve its bottom line. Alcoa said it earned $24 million, or 2 cents a share, compared with a loss of $175 million, or 13 cents a share, a year earlier. Excluding one-time items, it earned 11 cents a share, easily beating forecasts from analysts for 5 cents. Revenue slipped 1.2% to $5.77 million, but that still managed to exceed the Street’s view...
Sitting on rich resources of bauxite and coal, Odisha is an ideal centre to produce aluminium, the domestic demand for which is to continue to grow at an annual rate of at least eight per cent. Odisha has a share of 1.81 billion tonnes (bt) of the country's bauxite deposits of about 3 bt. The state also has coal deposits of 65.23 bt. This will explain why besides the ideally integrated 81 per cent government-owned National Aluminium Co (Nalco), Hindalco and Vedanta are seeking major capacity growth in Odisha, braving many odds. Nalco chairman Ansuman Das says to what extent the Odisha-linked ambitions of aluminium makers, including his own company, is realisable will "depend on the opening of new bauxite mines after securing all statutory clearances. Equally important, aluminium should be...
Glencore, one of the global giants in commodities trading, buys Venezuelan aluminum in dollars but also in Venezuelan bolivars, at the official exchange rate, the most favorable. How does it do it? Glencore's representatives in Venezuela buy most of the aluminum the Venezuelan Corporation of Guayana (CVG) produces for the foreign market. In parallel, the firm also purchases a part of the products the Venezuelan government has to sell, pursuant to the law, in the domestic market, only to companies registered in the country, and at the official exchange rate. Some Glencore representatives in Venezuela are simultaneously officers of other private firms buying products from state-run companies Bauxilum, Venalum and Alcasa, among other Venezuelan basic industries. In this way, the executive...
CME Group, the world’s largest futures exchange, will launch an aluminium contract to challenge the London Metal Exchange’s dominance of the largest base metals market as it suffers a storm of public criticism. Harriet Hunnable, head of metals at the Chicago-based group, said its plans for an aluminium contract were “very progressed”. “Customers want a futures contract that is a viable alternative to other contracts available today,” she told the FT on the sidelines of LME week, the largest annual gathering of the metals industry. The LME’s aluminium contract – the global benchmark for the $90bn market – has been at the focus of a wave of criticism of the exchange due to long queues to take delivery of the metal from some of the exchange’s network of warehouses that have helped create a...
The Aluminium Association of Canada (AAC) and Canadian International Aluminium Conference (CIAC) inform that, further to the request of many industry leaders, the keynote conferences and speakers presentations of the CIAC have been postponed until the spring 2014. All other planned events remain in place. The Aluminium Association of Canada (AAC) invited representatives of major Companies and Organizations of the international aluminium industry to the first Canadian International Aluminium Conference (CIAC) at the Palais des congrès de Montréal. The Exhibition will take place on the same date as on October 22nd, 23rd and 24th. Recap of the program: INALCO Conference - October 21st And 22nd Exhibition - October 22nd, 23rd, 24th Aluminium Association of Canada (AAC) Annual Reception -...
The DUBAL Noor, Enterprise Business Intelligence, Program developed in-house at Dubai Aluminium, DUBAL, the state-owned corporation that owns and operates one of the world’s largest single-site aluminium smelters, has been recognised internationally at this year’s CIO 100 Awards, which were presented during the 2013 CIO 100 Symposium, held mid-August in Colorado Springs, Colorado, USA. Designed to empower business excellence by providing appropriate intelligence for informed decision-making, the DUBAL Noor Program leverages advanced data analytics tools to reveal key information to users across the business, adding immense value to the business in the process. The annual CIO 100 Awards are presented to the top 100 organizations, and their employees, that use information technology,...
Equities research analysts at Morgan Stanley reduced their price objective on shares of Century Aluminum from $10.00 to $9.00 in a research note issued to investors on Monday, AnalystRatings.NET reports. The firm currently has an “equal weight” rating on the stock. Morgan Stanley’s target price points to a potential upside of 13.21% from the stock’s previous close. CENX has been the subject of a number of other recent research reports. Analysts at Zacks upgraded shares of Century Aluminum from an “underperform” rating to a “neutral” rating in a research note to investors on Thursday, September 26th. They now have a $8.50 price target on the stock. Finally, analysts at JPMorgan Chase & Co. reiterated a “neutral” rating on shares of Century Aluminum in a research note to investors on...
LME aluminium may climb into a range of $1,866-$1,878 per tonne, driven by a wave c. This is the third wave of a three-wave cycle that developed from the Sept. 17 low of $1,775.50. It may eventually travel to $1,898, its 100 percent Fibonacci projection level. However, there is a resistance zone of $1,866-$1,878 to block the way towards $1,898. The zone has been formed by the 61.8 percent and the 76.4 percent projection levels. A drop below $1,837 would signal a premature completion of the wave c, and the Oct. 4 low of $1,813.75 could be revisited. No information in this analysis should be considered as being business, financial or legal advice. Each reader should consult his or her own professional or other advisers for business, financial or legal advice regarding the products mentioned...
Bosnia's sole aluminium smelter and top exporter Aluminij Mostar has listed its shares, opening the way for trade in the stock after a rescue deal for the major employer and mainstay of the economy. The company was able to list its shares after a new ownership structure was registered by the securities commission in September. That ended a 17-year-old dispute dating back to the end of Bosnia's 1992-95 war. All the company's 190,110 shares were listed on the bourse at a nominal value of 1,000 Bosnian marka ($695.4) each, the Sarajevo Stock Exchange (SASE)said in a statement. Aluminij's operations in the southern Mostar area employ 900 people directly and thousands more indirectly. It accounts for half of metals sector output, which in turn provides more than half of the country's national...
Brazil’s aluminium output fell 7.8% year-on-year in August with high domestic energy costs and low metal prices discouraging new investments in primary production. Production stood at 111,600 tonnes in August, compared with 121,000 tonnes in the same month in 2012, according to figures released by Brazilian aluminium association Abal. In the January-August period, production fell 8.3% in comparison to the same period in 2012, totalling 888,400 tonnes. Domestic aluminium demand is expected to end 2013 with a 4.1% growth in comparison to the year before, driving up imports in the medium to long term. “With curtailed production and increasing internal demand, Brazil is to become an importer of aluminium,” a company executive told Metal Bulletin. In August, Alcoa announced it will temporarily...
The clusters of non-ferrous metallurgy and transport machine building are being created in northern Kazakhstan, akim (governor) of Pavlodar oblast (province), Yerlan Aryn said on Friday. "We will build a cluster of non-ferrous metals on the basis of the Pavlodar aluminium and electrolysis plants," the Aryn said, speaking at a press conference at the Central Communications Service under the President of Kazakhstan. According to him, a complete production chain is built with the creation of non-ferrous metal cluster - from production of bauxite, alumina and the primary aluminium to production of aluminium products. "This is the fourth and fifth redistributions of production. At a cost of about $2,000 per ton of aluminium we will sell the final product for $4,000," Aryn said. According to...
Organisers announced today that entry to the AluSolutions 2013 conference and exhibition taking place in Montreal later this month will be free-of-charge for all attendees. The event will take place at the Palais des congrès in Montreal, Canada during 22, 23 & 24 October 2013. The conference offers a platform for industry leaders to share their innovations, knowledge and insight and the exhibition will showcase more than 70 leading international suppliers of equipment, technology and services to the global aluminium industry.
The Aluminium Smelter Company of Nigeria (ALSCON) in Ikot Abasi Local Government Area of Akwa Ibom says it is losing 6.1 million US dollars monthly due to high cost of production. Mrs Tatyana Smirnova, its Director of Public/Government Relation, disclosed this to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Monday at Ikot Abasi. “Each tonne of aluminium produced at ALSCON results in a loss of 886 dollars which leads to monthly loss of 1.6 million dollars by the plant. “At present, aluminium industry globally is going through one of the toughest periods in its history,” she said. The spokesperson said that price of aluminium had continued to decline globally, noting that currently the price of aluminum stood at slightly over 1,700 dollars per tonne. “At the current price of below 1,800 dollars,...
Norsk Hydro ASA's part-owned aluminium smelter in Slovakia, Slovalco, has signed a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) for power supply with Slovenské Elektrárne. Following signing of a Letter of Intent for power supply, announced on July 18, Slovalco has entered into a PPA for electricity supply in the period 2014 to 2021. The power contract is the most important element in securing the total power framework for Slovalco, while securing other elements, such as grid cost, are in process. Slovalco is a fully consolidated aluminium smelter in Hydro, owned 55% by Hydro Aluminium AS. Slovalco has an annual production capacity of approximately165,000 metric tons of primary aluminium.
UC RUSAL, a leading, global aluminium producer, announces that it has deployed a new dry gas scrubbing system at its Novokuznetsk aluminium smelter. The new gas treatment equipment will ensure that potroom emissions at the site (phase 2) are absorbed. The overall budget for the project was RUB 120 million, of which RUB 11 million was raised in line with Article 6 of the Kyoto Protocol to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. The funding was secured through reducing perfluorocarbon (PFC) emissions at NkAZ by increasing efficiency and the reduction of the frequency and duration of anode effects. The new scrubbers ensure 99% off-gas purification efficiency which allows NkAZ to move to nearly zero waste production. Using alumina as an adsorbent for the fluorides in the pot gas...
City-based SM Consultants has been engaged to prepare the lay-out plan for the aluminium park at Angul being developed jointly by National Aluminium Company (Nalco) and Odisha Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation (Idco). A special purpose vehicle called Angul Aluminium Park Pvt Ltd (AAPPL) has been formed to set up the aluminium park. In the SPV, Idco has 50.5 per cent equity while the balance 49.5 per cent is held by Nalco. So far, 132 out of 200 acres of land needed for the park has been acquired. The park located close to the smelter of Nalco, will promote ancillary and downstream industries in the aluminium sector. The aluminium park has attracted investments worth Rs 631 crore even before taking a physical shape. Two industries — Midal Cables and Metal Powder Company Ltd...
