The London Metal Exchange (LME) aluminium price chart recovered on the November 9 trading session, wish cash reporting nearly 1 per cent gain compared to the November 6 close. Longer-dated contracts and inventories, however, edged lower. The LME aluminium cash bid as well as offer prices gained 0.96 per cent day-on-day on November 9. The bid recovered from USD 3,115 per tonne to USD 3,145 per tonne. The offer price surged from USD 3,117 per tonne to USD 3,147 per tonne . Explore- Most comprehensive and forward-looking industry-focused report — Global Bauxite & Alumina Market Forecast to 2036: Supply–Demand, Trade Flows & Price Outlook The LME aluminium three-month bid price reported a 0.33 per cent rise from USD 3,049 per tonne on November 6 to USD 3,059 per tonne on November 9. The offer...
Iran is expanding its domestic aluminium manufacturing capabilities through nanostructured anodising technology, developing specialised aluminium sheets and profiles for applications across aerospace, medical equipment, electronics and automotive industries. The initiative reflects a move towards higher-value aluminium products by improving the metal's surface properties and expanding its potential industrial applications. According to Pars Today, citing Mehr News Agency, an Iranian aluminium complex is using the technology to produce aluminium components with nanostructured ceramic coatings designed to improve resistance to corrosion and wear. The complex is also working on developing specialised aluminium standards and has so far established eight standards in this field. The...
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Press Metal's construction of a second and larger aluminium smelting plant at the Samalaju industrial park in Bintulu would not affect the operation of its first plant here. "We won't shut down, that's for sure," its plant manager here Dr Siew Eng Fui said during a Kembara 1Malaysia media tour of the plant, 38km from here, last week. He admitted the location of the plant here was less than ideal, but said there should be no fears that production would be scaled back, or the plant shutting down, or operations being moved to Bintulu. "Ideally, it should be located next to its power supply and a port." The smelter here has neither of them. There is no port and the 120,000 tonnes of ingots and billets the smelter produces annually are taken by trucks to a jetty 25km away in Balingian for the...
Reuters reported that production at Tajikistan's state owned aluminium smelter, the largest in former Soviet Central Asia fell 3.9% YoY in the first 6 months of 2012 after an extensive plant revamp. A source close to the plant's management said that Tajikistan Aluminium Company produced 144,661 tonnes of the metal in January to June 2012 versus 150,467 tonnes in the corresponding period of last year.
Aiming to achieve optimal growth in the aluminium sector, the Mines Ministry will shortly appoint a consultant to prepare a National Aluminium Plan. "Eight consultancy firms had responded to the expression of interest we sought earlier. We have shortlisted five among them and they have made detailed presentation to us on May 7. They are being evaluated for selecting the one which will help us to prepare the Plan," Mines Secretary Vishwapati Trivedi told PTI. The short-listed five are -- Ernst & Young, ICRA, KPMG, PricewaterhouseCoopers and Nielson. Trivedi is heading the core committee which has the task of selecting the consultant. The National Aluminium Plan, a draft of which has already been prepared by Aluminium Association of India, is aimed at addressing needs of the sector for an...
Goldman Sachs is constructive on aluminum over the next three months, seeing upside potential to $2,200 a metric ton, thus favors purchasing September London Metal Exchange calls with strikes up to $2,150. According to Goldman, “Over the past month, aluminum has come under pressure following the news of some Chinese smelters subsidies in some provinces (including the major smelting province of Henan).” However, Goldman estimates that some 20% of Chinese smelter output is still losing money on a cash-cost basis. They continued that, “taking into account the smelters losing money at current prices outside of China, we estimate that the aluminum price is trading around the 75% percentile of the global cash-cost curve.” The bank looks for limited global aluminum supply growth in the second...
Despite the benchmark aluminium price on the London Metal Exchange (LME) falling below cost of production, metal producers in India are avoiding output cut at least for the current fiscal amid hope of revival in its price in the second half of the year. This is important in view of the global majors including Alcoa, Rusal, Norsk Hydro and Rio Tinto have announced around 1.8 million tonne of accumulative production cut to reduce the loss burden on their books. The decision to continue with the existing production capacity by Indian aluminium majors assumes significance as further fall in prices will make it unaffordable for them. Hope of prices stabilizing and rising further in international market has also helped postponing their decision.. A recent Barclays report says that the average...
Sohar Aluminium is keen to triple its production capacity from its current 375,000 metric tonnes of aluminium per annum to one million metric tonnes, said Henk Pauw, chief executive of Sohar Aluminium. Speaking at the signing of Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between Sohar Aluminum and the Public Authority for Crafts Industries (PACI) to impart training for Omanis, Henk stated that this would be possible if expansions plans put forth by the company get a nod from the Ministry of Oil and Gas. With global demand for primary aluminium set to reach 75 million tonnes by 2020, the chief executive sees huge potential for the aluminum industry despite slack season at the moment. The MoU signed at the PACI head office yesterday focuses on training of 15 Omani youths. The aluminum craft training...
THE world's largest mining company has decided to pull out of Guinea weeks after The Sunday Times revealed a backroom deal that gave a shadowy middleman rights to billions of dollars worth of mining assets. BHP Billiton's decision to put its Mount Nimba iron ore project up for sale is a blow for President Alpha Conde, who has spent the past two years courting Western investors. The West African country has the world's largest reserves of bauxite, the raw material for aluminium, as well as large deposits of diamonds, iron and gold. Mr Conde made reforming the mining sector his top priority since his election in 2010, and brought in Tony Blair as a personal adviser through the former British prime minister's African Governance Initiative. Billionaire trader George Soros has offered advice...
Constellium and the United Steelworkers are negotiating a new contract for union workers at the company's aluminum rolling mill in Ravenswood. A statement posted on United Steelworkers Local 5668's website says the existing contract has been extended until midnight July 22. That agreement was set to expire at midnight Sunday. Details of the talks will be discussed with union members Tuesday during Local 5668's regular scheduled meeting. A spokeswoman for Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin told the Charleston Daily Mail that the governor hopes both parties come to an agreement soon. The mill employs about 1,000 people and is Jackson County's largest employer.
Standard & Poor's Ratings Services has lowered its price assumptions for nickel and aluminum for the rest of this year, noting that "most metals prices are unlikely to fall much further under our base-case scenario for 2012." "Our revised assumptions take into account the notable decline in spot prices for nickel and aluminum since our last update in January 2012, continued oversupply in the two markets, and the currently uncertain global economic outlook," wrote S&P Credit Analysts Andrey Nikolaev and Marie Shmaruk in an advisory note published Thursday. Since S&P's January update, aluminum and nickel have fallen 11% and 16%--the steepest drops among the base metals. "The key reason for this underperformance, in our view, is the oversupply of the two metals," said the analysts. "As for...
Standard & Poor's Ratings Services has lowered its price assumption for aluminum to $0.90/lb ($1,980/mt) for the rest of 2012, from $0.95/lb ($2,090/mt) in January, the company said last Thursday in a report. S&P attributed the move to an 11% decline in aluminum spot price since January, which it linked to oversupply and the uncertain global economic outlook. Aluminum prices were also under pressure from the strengthening US dollar and concerns about China's demand growth, the ratings firm said. S&P's said it price assumption for 2013 was unchanged at $0.95/lb, because current spot prices are already close to cash costs of major producers and below those of many high-cost smelters. "Still, large inventories --including up to 70% tied up in financial deals according to some industry...
A decision by Nigeria’s Supreme Court to strip Russian aluminum giant RusAl of its ownership of its Nigerian aluminum processing plant may harm economic cooperation with Russia, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Thursday. “The decision by the Nigerian Supreme Court on Alscon (Aluminum Smelter Company of Nigeria) may damage investment and economic cooperation between Russia and Nigeria,” the ministry said. Moscow has urged the Nigerian authorities to “take measures to prevent possible damage to existing relations with Russia,” in the wake of the Alscon decision. Nigeria’s Supreme Court ruled on July 6 that the sale of Alscon to the Russian aluminum giant in 2007 was illegal, arguing US-based firm BFI Group had offered double the sum Rusal had offered for the enterprise. RusAl bought...
Mr Vladimir Dmitriev, VEB chairman said that the supervisory board of Vnesheconombank (VEB) on Wednesday approved an increase in financing for the Boguchany Aluminum Smelter from RUB 21 billion to RUB 47 billion. He said that the board considered the issue of expanding financing for the Boguchany Aluminum Smelter increasing production to 300,000 tonnes of aluminum instead of the previously planned 150,000 tonnes. He added that "The budget for the project is growing, but certain elements there will need to be worked out with the organizers of the project with both Rusal and RusHydro (RTS: HYDR)." Mr Dmitriev said however, conceptually the approach was supported.
Brazilian smelters produced 727,300 metric tons of primary aluminum in the first half, up 2.5% from the same period of 2011, the Brazilian aluminium association Abal said Friday. Output in the month of June was 117,800 tons, or 0.6% greater, than a year earlier, Abal said in a statement. Output in the January-June period fell at the installations of Alcoa Inc. (AA), BHP Billiton Ltd. (BHP.AU), Novelis and Albras, Abal said. However, these falls were offset by a 15.9% increase in output at Votorantim Metais' Companhia Brasileira do Aluminio, the association said.
The week’s biggest mover on the weekly Aluminum MMI® was the cash price of primary Indian aluminum, which saw a three percent decline. This comes on the heels of a one percent increase the week before. Following a 6.6 percent increase in the week prior, the primary aluminum cash price fell three percent on the LME last week to $1,872 per metric ton. The aluminum 3-month price fell three percent on the LME to $1,907 per metric ton after rising 6.3 percent the week before. Chinese aluminum prices were mixed for the week. Following a 1.9 percent increase in the week prior, the Chinese aluminum cash price fell 1.3 percent last week. The price of Chinese aluminum billet fell 0.9 percent after rising 1.9 percent the week before. Chinese aluminum bar remained essentially flat from the previous...
Century Aluminum's chief executive said last week his company would be willing to invest up to $100 million in its idled Ravenswood plant, should Century get a viable power agreement from the state Public Service Commission. Century is currently working with state officials to craft a power arrangement that will help it restart the plant, which closed in 2009. In filings with the PSC, some parties - including Appalachian Power - have questioned whether Century would be committed to keeping the plant open for more than 10 years after a restart. The questions were based on a 2009 private appraisal to bolster the company's challenge to the state Tax Department's appraisal of the plant. That appraisal said the Ravenswood plant, built during the 1950s, only had about 10 years of life left to...
Australian-based Mining giant BHP Billiton - the world's largest diversified miner - is considering a withdrawal from aluminum and nickel operations as part of a general retreat from non-profitable side projects by key mining players. “The Financial Times” reported that according to some unnamed sources BHP is one of a number of major mining companies pushing for a “retreat to the core,” seeking to divest itself of non-essential operations. This development comes only months after BHP consolidated its aluminum and nickel assets into a single Perth-based division, which aluminum, nickel and corporate development CEO Alberto Claderon said was significant of the company’s long-term confidence in these areas. Given the current state of the market, industry observers wonder if this is a...
UC RUSAL, the world's largest aluminium producer, is pleased to announce that the Company has become a member of the China Nonferrous Metals Industry Association (CNIA), which is the most influential national non-profit organisation in the PRC which represents the interests of non-ferrous industry players. The membership of the CNIA represents another milestone in the Company's strategy to secure its long-term presence in the Chinese market. Membership of the CNIA will allow RUSAL to co-operate with the organization in terms of the long-term sustainable development of the aluminium industry, promotion of the use of aluminium, protection of the environment and other issues of mutual interest. Presently RUSAL produces 3.5 million tonnes of aluminium per year at its smelters in Siberia, and...
An aluminum company warned Monday that its nearly 800-employee Hawesville smelter in western Kentucky is being put at risk as a result of stalled negotiations to achieve concessions in its power costs to help offset sluggish global aluminum prices. Century Aluminum executives updated plant employees Monday about a halt in negotiations with Big Rivers Electric Corp. The California-based company said its contract rate for electricity is much higher than open-market prices. The Hawesville smelter, which supplies aluminum for U.S. military equipment and civilian uses, consumes vast amounts of power. The negotiations have broader implications because concessions for the Century plant and another smelter in Henderson County owned by another company could result in higher rates for other...
