http://www.minews.ir/MiningEquipment Wed, 12 Aug 2015 15:36:52 GMT News Studio(News Distribution System http://www.minews.ir/skins/default/en/{CURRENT_THEME}/ch01_newsfeed_logo.gif http://www.minews.ir/ 100 70 en Produced by Minews Wed, 12 Aug 2015 15:36:52 GMT Aluminium 60 http://www.minews.ir/en/doc/news/26693/nalco-seeks-to-set-up-2-6-billion-iran-aluminium-complex (Minews) - India's National Aluminium Co Ltd (NALCO) wants to set up an aluminium smelter and an associated power plant in Iran worth as much as $2.6 billion, its boss said, once sanctions against the country start to be lifted.Tapan Kumar Chand will meet with India's foreign ministry officials and the ambassador of Iran in New Delhi next week to take things forward, he said in his first interview since being appointed as the chairman-cum-managing director of NALCO last week.Chand said he would prefer a local partner who could supply cheap power to run a 1 million tonne per annum smelter in Iran. NALCO would source alumina as raw material for the plant from its refinery in the eastern Indian state of Odisha.NALCO's plans provide further evidence of how business ties are increasing between the two countries.KIOCL, another Indian state-backed company, last month agreed to sell high-grade iron ore pellets to Iran in a deal potentially worth $200 million annually.India and Iran had maintained a close relationship despite the U.S.-led trade restrictions over Iran's nuclear programme. Last month, Iran and six world powers reached a nuclear deal, clearing the way for an easing of sanctions on Tehran.Chand said multi-year-low prices for aluminium due to an oversupply would not be a deterrent to the plans. Any new plant would take 2-3 years to complete and by then demand could improve given the nature of such cyclical industries, he said."Generally producers take the opportunity of such downturns to build up their plant capacities, so that as and when demand picks up they are in a position to cater to that," Chand said.A consultant appointed by NALCO has also shortlisted Oman and Indonesia as destinations where it could set up a smelter. Nothing has been finalised, Chand said.DEMAND, DIVERSIFICATIONIndia's per-capita consumption of aluminium is just about 2.2 kg, compared with 25 kg in China, according to industry data in India. But demand in the country is growing at an annual rate of about 11 percent against global growth of 6 percent.Chand expects Prime Minister Narendra Modi's plans to expand power transmission networks, build new cities and extend the country's railway network to drive demand growth.Indian aluminium producers, including NALCO, Vedanta Ltd, and Hindalco Industries Ltd, have the capacity to produce 2.9 million tonnes of aluminium a year. Chand said India's aluminium output was about 2 million tonnes last fiscal year and could rise to 2.4-2.5 million tonnes in the current year.Aluminium prices are currently under pressure from a supply glut. Benchmark aluminium on the London Metal Exchange, for example, is near its lowest for six years.NALCO, which also wants to diversify into nuclear power production, is nevertheless looking to strengthen its raw material supply chain.It expects Odisha to give it a green light for a new bauxite mine in the next few months that will help it to start work on another 1 million tonne per annum alumina plant at a cost of about $867 million.The company, which has the capacity to produce 2.28 million tonnes a year of alumina from naturally occurring bauxite, is also in talks with officials in Modi's home state of Gujarat to set up another 1 million tonne a year alumina refinery there, Chand said."You can't remain at the same place," he said. "If you don't grow, competitors will start growing and you will be squeezed out of the market." ]]> Aluminium Sat, 08 Aug 2015 05:11:04 GMT http://www.minews.ir/en/doc/news/26693/nalco-seeks-to-set-up-2-6-billion-iran-aluminium-complex http://www.minews.ir/en/doc/news/26292/india-mines-ministry-proposes-doubling-of-import-tax-on-aluminum (Minews) - India’s mines ministry will ask its counterparts in the government’s finance department to double the import tax on aluminum to counter cheap imports from the Middle East and China.Producers have sought an increase in custom duty to 10 percent, Mines Secretary Balvinder Kumar said in a phone interview from New Delhi.“The industry is in a difficult situation and they need some sort of government support to tide over the situation,” he said.Cheap imports into Asia’s third-biggest economy from the Middle East and China and plunging prices on the London Metal Exchange because of global oversupply have made smelters economically unviable, according to Vedanta Ltd. Prices in London of the metal, used in everything from aircraft to window frames, slumped 18.6 percent in the past year to a six-year low.“In case of a further fall in prices we will be forced to take recourse to down-scaling of operations as our position would become economically untenable,” Abhijit Pati, chief executive officer for Vedanta’s aluminum business, said Wednesday.Chinese exports of unwrought aluminum and products grew 35 percent to 2.5 million metric tons in the first half from a year earlier, according to customs data. While the world’s biggest producing nation requires a 15 percent export duty on primary aluminum, it offers a 13 percent tax rebate on shipments of semi-fabricated products. ]]> Aluminium Wed, 22 Jul 2015 15:14:54 GMT http://www.minews.ir/en/doc/news/26292/india-mines-ministry-proposes-doubling-of-import-tax-on-aluminum http://www.minews.ir/en/doc/news/26235/lme-reaches-settlement-on-u-s-aluminum-class-action-cases (Minews) - Hong Kong Exchanges & Clearing Ltd (HKEx) has settled two class-action lawsuits against itself and the London Metal Exchange (LME) over allegations of anti-competitive and monopolistic behavior.No money was paid by either side in arriving at the settlement, the HKEx-owned LME said in a statement.Under the settlement announced by HKEx on Sunday, the plaintiffs agreed to drop the LME from appeals against a U.S. court’s decision last August dismissing them from their cases, the exchange said.This leaves the plaintiffs free to ask the LME for publicly available data, which they were prevented from doing while the LME was a defendant in the lawsuits. LME data includes inventory levels in the warehouses it monitors."These are the only principal terms of the settlement," the London-based LME said.The lawsuits, brought last year by companies in the United States, accused banks and traders of hoarding metal in LME warehouses, driving up the prices of industrial products from soft-drink cans to aeroplanes.The plaintiffs, which included small aluminum manufacturers, had argued that the 137-year-old exchange abetted the scam by writing rules that made it possible and ignoring calls to change.The world's oldest metals marketplace has in the past year undertaken sweeping reform of warehouse practices, aimed at solving the central problem of huge backlogs to withdraw metal from its global network.In March a U.S. judge threw out the aluminum price-fixing claims against several Wall Street banks, commodity merchants and HKEx.Of 26 lawsuits filed against the LME, 24 were consolidated into three complaints according to type of user: "first-level" purchasers that buy primary aluminum, consumer end users and commercial end users.With regard to the third lawsuit complaint, the "first level" purchasers, HKEx said that plaintiffs had not yet filed an appeal against a U.S. District Court's decision.The LME was bought by HKEx in 2012 for 1.4 billion pounds. ]]> Aluminium Mon, 20 Jul 2015 17:30:09 GMT http://www.minews.ir/en/doc/news/26235/lme-reaches-settlement-on-u-s-aluminum-class-action-cases http://www.minews.ir/en/doc/news/26161/india-to-build-aluminum-smelter-complex-in-iran (Minews) - India plans a $3 billion aluminum smelter complex in Iran, now that nuclear negotiations between Tehran and world powers have concluded, media reports say.The idea was mooted in 2014 but India had been cooling its heels for the removal of sanctions on Iran to go ahead with the plan.India's National Aluminium Co. is now reportedly giving a serious consideration to the project after Iran and the Group 5+1 (Russia, China, the US, Britain, France, and Germany) finalized their negotiations.It includes construction of a smelter to produce 500,000 metric tons of aluminum per year and a 1,000-megawatt captive power plant, Press TV reported.India's coal stock is not sufficient to power its aluminum production and since imports of coal are not viable, the country has to look for reserves and build a plant abroad.Iran is using a mix of sources for power generation, including hydroelectric stations, oil products and natural gas.With a lingering drought having drained dams and oil products polluting the environment, the country is switching to gas-powered electricity. Last year, Iran fed 50 billion cubic meters of gas into its power plants, up from 36 billion cubic meters.The country is viewed an ideal destination for aluminum production because of its power generation capacities, given that electricity accounts for 40% of smelting costs.Iran itself produces about 340,000 metric tons of aluminum per year and plans to raise it to 1.5 million tons by 2025 with an investment of about $12 billion.Its biggest aluminum manufacturer, the Iranian Aluminum Company (Iralco), is based in the central city of Arak and listed on the Tehran Stock Exchange.  Bid for businessOther Indian companies are reportedly scouting for business opportunities in Iran. Multinational conglomerate Larsen & Toubro is said to be angling for oil and gas projects while Tata Power is looking for power schemes and Adani Enterprises eyeing port investments.India signed an MoU in May for the development of Chabahar Port in southeast Iran. A commercial accord is still needed to implement the pact. New Delhi says it will use terminals in the port to operate container and multi-purpose cargo ships. Last month, the second English-language Indian daily, the Hindu, said New Delhi had begun “resetting” ties with Tehran to pave its way for entry into Afghanistan and the Central Asia. ]]> Aluminium Sat, 18 Jul 2015 16:41:55 GMT http://www.minews.ir/en/doc/news/26161/india-to-build-aluminum-smelter-complex-in-iran http://www.minews.ir/en/doc/news/25923/aluminum-glut-dents-alcoa-s-prospects (Minews) - Beijing’s panicked reaction to sliding Chinese stock prices must be causing a few ripples of anxiety at Alcoa, too.When Alcoa reports second-quarter results Wednesday, investors will be looking for any glimmers of a rebound in metal prices, especially aluminum. The company’s stock has suffered, plunging 30% so far in 2015.Aluminum alloy, for instance, fetches about $1,644 a metric ton on the London Metal Exchange, down 11% this year and at its lowest since 2009. Meanwhile, the premiums that users pay to obtain immediate delivery of metal have fallen from record highs. Midwestern premiums, for example, are down 65% since February, according to Morningstar.Expectations for Alcoa have dropped accordingly. At the start of 2015, analysts projected second-quarter revenue of $6.4 billion. They now expect $5.8 billion, according to FactSet, flat from a year earlier. Earnings are seen at 21 cents a share, up from 18 cents a year earlier.Alcoa continues to do what it can. It has cut smelting capacity by 33% since 2007. But excess aluminum supply—primarily from China—remains stubborn. Alcoa is in the midst of a major transformation to diversify product offerings, though that is a multiyear project.One counterpoint to the gloom is Alcoa’s valuation. Market value adjusted for net debt is now slightly less than six times forward earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization—the lowest multiple since 2011.Moreover, bets against the stock have been rising. Shares sold short now equate to nearly five days of average trading volume, up from about one day’s worth in January. So any sign of brighter prospects could fuel a near-term rally.Even so, those prospects are tied to China where the government’s sudden market intervention signals financial strains.Paul Adkins of AZ China, a metals consultancy, foresees further pressure. He says the all-in price of aluminum, including premiums, averaged about $1,850 in the past four weeks. That could slip in the third quarter. Even if it stays flat, Mr. Adkins says, that would be $200 a metric ton less, on average, than the second quarter and $600 less than a year earlier.Just as Beijing’s extraordinary measures aren’t the best basis for a sustainable rally, it is hard to see Alcoa’s stock getting far on that. ]]> Aluminium Wed, 08 Jul 2015 15:02:16 GMT http://www.minews.ir/en/doc/news/25923/aluminum-glut-dents-alcoa-s-prospects http://www.minews.ir/en/doc/news/25871/eu-imposes-anti-dumping-duties-on-russian-aluminum-foil (Minews) - The European Union will impose anti-dumping duties on imports of Russian aluminum foil after an initial investigation showed the product was sold in the 28-nation EU at below normal market prices, the EU's Official Journal said on Saturday.It said a provisional anti-dumping duty of 12.2 percent will be levied from Sunday on imports of aluminum foil from Russia, which is all made by the Rusal group, the world's largest aluminum producer."On the basis of the conclusions reached by the (European) Commission ... provisional measures should be imposed to prevent further injury being caused to the Union industry by the dumped imports," the notice in the journal said.The provisional duties last for six months, by which time the EU's executive Commission will have completed its investigation, which may result in the imposition of definitive duties normally lasting five years.Rusal said in an emailed comment that it would continue to work with the Commission as it completed its investigation.It voiced hope that, at the end of the process, "when the Commission takes our arguments into account, the duties may be decreased or canceled."The Commission launched its investigation last October after receiving a complaint from several European producers of aluminum foil.The aluminum market is suffering from oversupply, putting downwards pressure on prices.The EU's relations with Russia are strained over the Ukraine crisis, which led the EU to impose economic sanctions on Moscow and Russia to respond with a ban on most Western food imports. ]]> Aluminium Mon, 06 Jul 2015 16:08:33 GMT http://www.minews.ir/en/doc/news/25871/eu-imposes-anti-dumping-duties-on-russian-aluminum-foil http://www.minews.ir/en/doc/news/25619/weak-prices-push-rusal-toward-further-aluminum-cuts (Minews) - The continuing weakness of aluminum prices this year has caused Rusal, the world’s biggest producer of the metal, to mull further production cuts this fall, the latest sign of a major shift in the balance of power between buyers and sellers.Russia-based Rusal could cut its output of the industrial metal used in a range of products from cars to drinks cans by 200,000 tons in annualized terms starting this autumn, its Chief Executive Vladislav Soloviev said Friday. That is equivalent to nearly 6% of Rusal’s yearly production.Rusal’s potential cut comes amid a prolonged malaise for aluminum caused in large part by a flood of exports of the metal from China as domestic demand there wanes. The price of benchmark 3-month aluminum futures on the London Metal Exchange has fallen 6.5% so far this year, and now trades close to its lowest level in a year.China’s primary aluminum production rose 22% year-over-year to 2.7 million tons in May, accounting for around half of the world’s output. Elsewhere in the world, aluminum production grew by just 1.5% year-over-year, according to the International Aluminium Institute. China’s exports of unwrought aluminum rose by 32% to 2.1 million tons between January and May.As supply has ballooned, the premiums buyers pay for immediate delivery of aluminum have collapsed to around a third of their previous level this year. In previous years, those premiums often reached very high levels, partly because of logjams at several metals warehouses around the world that slowed down transport of the metal.High premiums had become such a problem that the LME has been planning to introduce new contracts this year to enable market participants to hedge themselves against spikes in the excess they have to pay for prompt delivery.The decline in premiums is partly due to new rules introduced by the exchange to force warehouses with delivery backlogs that last longer than 50 days to ship the metal quicker.With the market awash in supplies, Japanese premiums on aluminum—a key market—have fallen to a three-year low of around $100 per ton from $330 per ton in January. Even so, buyers there are demanding even lower premiums of $70-$75 per ton, analysts and traders say.“If they agree to a premium of below $100 per ton, that would mark the lowest level in six years,” says Daniel Briesemann, analyst with Commerzbank. “We do expect the downward trend in premiums to continue further,” he said.Japanese buyers are currently negotiating the premiums to be paid on aluminum that are fixed each quarter with major suppliers.The aluminum price drop has put high-cost producers of the metal under pressure to prune their output. However, many big producers have been reluctant to reduce output for fear of losing market share.Chinese producers in particular have resisted cuts. Their costs have fallen in part because of lower energy costs thanks to falling coal prices, and partly because the industry there has brought on stream a number of new, more energy-efficient smelters in recent months, meaning they can still make reasonable profit margins on their exports.“We expect growing Chinese aluminum product exports to be a key feature of the aluminum market this year,” Citi said in a report.Rusal’s Mr. Soloviev said the company had scrapped its forecast that the aluminum market could be in deficit this year, saying it now expects supply and demand to be roughly in balance. He said he expected other producers to follow Rusal’s lead in cutting production, though it was hard to read the intentions of its Chinese counterparts.“The unknown question is China,” said Mr. Soloviev. ]]> Aluminium Sat, 27 Jun 2015 15:50:21 GMT http://www.minews.ir/en/doc/news/25619/weak-prices-push-rusal-toward-further-aluminum-cuts http://www.minews.ir/en/doc/news/25542/aluminium-glut-to-continue-as-smelters-get-lifeline-of-lower-costs (Minews) - The aluminium market is unlikely to see enough producer cutbacks to reduce oversupply in coming months as currency benefits and cheaper inputs have allowed most smelters to stay out of the red.That means the price of the lightweight metal used in transport and packaging may be drawn still lower towards levels that would force more supply to be shut down, analysts and industry sources said.Closures or lower output are needed to slash a surplus on global markets mainly due to surging output and exports from top producer China. Consultancy CRU has increased its forecast of a global aluminium surplus for 2015 to 963,000 tonnes."Cutbacks are going to be difficult. Input costs have come down, so margins at producers may in fact have stayed OK even 2though prices have come down," said Robin Bhar, head of metals research at SocieteGenerale in London.The so-called "all-in" aluminium price - the cash aluminium price on the London Metal Exchange plus the surcharge or premium for immediate delivery - has tumbled 28 percent over the past seven months to about $1,830 a tonne.But costs have also slid, partly due to weaker local currencies against the dollar in top aluminium producers such as Russia, Norway and Canada, keeping many operations profitable.With the price of raw material alumina also down, overall costs to make aluminium have sunk by about $400, bringing down marginal costs to about $1,600 a tonne, Bhar said.Marginal costs - the 90th percentile of the cost curve - are regarded as the level that prompt curtailments to production when prices drop below them.SURGING CHINA OUTPUTProduction has continued to surge in China, partly due to lower costs for alumina and power, climbing 22 percent year-on-year in May to a record high of 2.67 million tonnes."China is still building out lots of new smelting capacity, which is another factor in reducing the Chinese cost floor. All of the smelters they're building are state of the art, highly energy efficient," said analyst David Wilson at Citi in London.Outside of China, Russia's Rusal and U.S. Alcoa have said in recent months they were considering further shutdowns.Top producer Rusal said in April it might idle 200,000 tonnes of capacity while Alcoa said the month before it was reviewing 500,000 tonnes of smelting capacity.Decisions on whether to trim output, however, would not be easy after millions of tonnes have already been shut in recent years."Cutbacks are much more difficult now. Most of the obvious candidates have already been shut down by the big producers," said Marco Georgiou at CRU. "If we have to go into a new round of cutbacks, it will be more painful this time." ]]> Aluminium Wed, 24 Jun 2015 13:53:08 GMT http://www.minews.ir/en/doc/news/25542/aluminium-glut-to-continue-as-smelters-get-lifeline-of-lower-costs http://www.minews.ir/en/doc/news/25371/dubai-cable-building-first-aluminum-plant-as-copper-losing (Minews) - Dubai Cable Co., the second-largest cable manufacturer in the Middle East, is building its first aluminum plant as customers in Saudi Arabia to the U.S. seek cheaper alternatives to copper for power transmission.The $60 million factory in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates will have capacity to produce 50,000 metric tons of aluminum rod and overhead conductors annually, Andrew Shaw, managing director of Dubai Cable, said in an interview Monday at the company’s copper rod plant in Dubai. The project, called Ducab Aluminium Co., will create 120 to 140 jobs with its opening planned for the first quarter of 2016, he said.Copper is losing about 2 percent a year of demand to less costly materials such as aluminum, or about 500,000 tons, London-based researcher CRU estimates. Aluminum is a third the cost of copper and supplies of aluminum in warehouses monitored by the London Metal Exchange are almost 12 times higher.“Given the relative economics of copper versus aluminum, particularly in Saudi Arabia, they’ve tended to chose aluminum,” Shaw said. “We see a slow substitution of copper for aluminum, particularly in a country like Saudi which is a very large market.”Aluminum PremiumsCopper dropped 7.4 percent this year to $5,817 a ton on the LME while aluminum fell 7.8 percent to $1,714 a ton. The premium for aluminum ingot added on top of the price of metal on the LME has declined in the Middle East to $120 to $140 a ton from $415 to $420 a ton at the start of this year, Harish Kumar, manager of operations and sales at Dubai Cable, said.Dubai Cable, started in 1979, is mostly a copper buyer, purchasing about 135,000 tons of the metal a year, with about 70,000 to 80,000 tons used to make cables. Last year, it bought 8,000 tons of aluminum. Riyadh Cables Group is the biggest cable producer in the Middle East, according to Shaw.The U.A.E.’s Emirates Global Aluminium will provide all the hot molten metal needed for Ducab Aluminum at the Kizad Khalifa Industrial Zone in Abu Dhabi, Shaw said. “From a logistics and an industrial operating efficiency point of view, this is great. They’re like the mother hen, fostering a downstream industry.”Ducab Aluminium is 60 percent owned by Dubai Cable, and the rest by Senaat, which owns Abu Dhabi companies including National Petroleum Construction Co. and Emirates Steel. Dubai Cable itself is owned 50 percent by Senaat and the other half by Investment Corp. of Dubai, which oversees the government’s commercial assets. ]]> Aluminium Tue, 16 Jun 2015 11:23:26 GMT http://www.minews.ir/en/doc/news/25371/dubai-cable-building-first-aluminum-plant-as-copper-losing http://www.minews.ir/en/doc/news/24754/iran-to-build-aluminium-project-in-arvand-zone (Minews) - Iran plans to build a new aluminium project at the Arvand Free Zone to help develop the region's economy, Akbar Torkan, Iran’s senior presidential advisor, was quoted as saying by a local newspaper.The new factory’s production capacity will be 4,700 tonnes per year, said a report in the Iran Daily.He noted that many foreign investors have shown interest in investing in Iran's free zones. ]]> Aluminium Tue, 26 May 2015 18:05:20 GMT http://www.minews.ir/en/doc/news/24754/iran-to-build-aluminium-project-in-arvand-zone