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Automotive manufacturers have faced a bumpy ride since the beginning of 2020, with the Covid-19 pandemic hitting production and demand, while its effects on the supply chain have created shortages of materials and components. Myra Pinkham unpacks the trends and outlines the road ahead.
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Chinese exports of refractory-grade bauxite increased by 51.58% year on year in the first seven months of 2021, while shipments of white and brown fused alumina (WFA, BFA) rose by 52.37% and 26.34% respectively over the same period.
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The steel and metals industries stress that their products are key to enabling solutions to address global environmental priorities. Myra Pinkham gathers international views on progress in ‘green’ transformation and asks what today’s environmental goals imply for industrial production and future demand
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With responsibilities across Tata Steel’s diverse international portfolio of steelmaking assets, chief executive officer and managing director TV Narendran has a wide-ranging view of, and experience in, the global steel industry. He told Kunal Bose about the company’s strategy to thrive in a changing world for major steel producers
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Welcome to the February 2021 issue of Metal Market Magazine, where we feature an in-depth look at the issues surrounding Chinese bauxite supply, the effect of environmental controls on bauxite and fused alumina output, and a gradual improvement in trading conditions for calcined alumina.
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Calcined alumina suppliers hope the recent increase in demand they have noted will prompt a rebound in prices later in the year.
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China’s exports of refractory-grade bauxite and white fused alumina dropped slightly in 2020, while exports of brown fused alumina plunged by 26%, owing to preference for lower-priced WFA according to sources.
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Supply uncertainty facing the refractories raw material sector is to continue in the first quarter of 2021 due to regulations in major Chinese production hubs for bauxite and fused alumina, as well as surging logistics costs.
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Refractory raw material consumers are likely to face shortages in bauxite, with the continued supply and logistics bottlenecks from China coming against a low-stock situation in destination markets.
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In ever more environmentally conscious times, the recyclability of steel and aluminium packaging has come to the fore around the full circle of the supply chain, reports Gregory DL Morris
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Refractory-grade bauxite prices have held firm due to tightening supply despite the uncertainties caused the Covid-19 pandemic.
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Low capacity utilization at China’s kilns for production of brown fused alumina was weighing heavily on the markets, driven by weak demand for refractories.
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Battle tested, hard-nosed, and, at times, known to be very blunt, the top executive of the largest and oldest independent iron ore mining company in the US has been called many things in an almost 40-year career spent from one end of the steel supply chain to the other. Fearful is not one of them.
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Steel mills and service centers expect a slow restart to auto making, reports Gregory DL Morris.
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While China’s ports have resumed normal operations, markets for refractories are sluggish.
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China’s domestic logistics are returning to normal, but overseas demand has been curbed by the Covid-19 virus.
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Delays to exports of minerals from China are inevitable as a result of the nation’s battle to contain the spread of novel coronavirus. Davide Ghilotti and Carrie Shi made a mid-February assessment of the impacts.
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New LME chair Gay Huey Evans has a great depth of experience and wide range of interests. Andrea Hotter asks her what has driven her career and what priorities she has at the exchange.
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Most provinces in China are still facing strict environmental restrictions during the winter months, with raw materials production and demand from the downstream sector affected to some degree, report Carrie Shi and Sybil Pan.
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The market for fused alumina has been characterized by an increasing separation of brown fused (BFA) and white fused (WFA) alumina. As these factors strengthen, the decoupling is expected to drive these markets further apart in the near term, writes Davide Ghilotti
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Weakening refractories business affected trade flows of Chinese bauxite to international customers, but the supply tightness in mining and processing acted as a counterbalance, reports Sybil Pan.
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Pressure is continuing to mount on the refractories sector while its main market – the steel industry – suffers from overcapacity, trade tensions and emissions reduction targets, Rose Pengelly finds.
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Suppliers debate whether calcined alumina can break the oversupply wall in a bearish 2020 scenario, writes Davide Ghilotti.
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Alexander Shevelev, CEO of Russian steelmaker Severstal, says that the company has changed its culture quite quickly and substantially to focus on being a solutions provider. Richard Barrett asked him to explain that mission and to recall his path from the shop floor to the top of a company that employs 50,000 people
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Indian refractories output rebounded in 2018, after three successive years of decline. Sunder Singh analyzes what was behind the shift in the industry’s fortunes and hears reasons for both optimism and consternation, from some of the market’s key participants.
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When Erik Zobec launched Seven Refractories at
the height of the eurozone crisis, few would have believed the company would go on to become one
of the world’s leading monolithics producers. As
Seven approaches 10 years in business, he talks to Ross Davies about its ascent.
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US-based Bricking Solutions has been in the refractories kiln maintenance business for more than 50 years and has been led by managing director Heather Harding since January 2019. She shares her views on the business she runs and the wider refractories industry.
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Refractories bounced back in 2018, driving demand for bauxite and alumina raw materials, but the market continues to face what is becoming a perennial state of crisis affecting supply from China.
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Whether you call them technical ceramics, engineering ceramics or advanced ceramics, these materials have advanced steadily through the past year, and 2019 holds a great deal of potential for more widespread adoption, notably in the high performance industrial arena, as Charlie Wallin reports.
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A round-up of the year’s main events in the global bauxite and alumina markets.
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The spreads in the bauxite market have been widening, while concerns over China's 2019 supply flow increase and keep brown-fused alumina (BFA) and white-fused alumina (WFA) prices stable.
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A round-up of all this year's events in the global industrial mineral sector.
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The broad upward swing has been welcomed by the beleaguered sector but there is cause for caution, writes Will Fray, senior analyst at Maritime Strategies International.
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After a year of reorganization and changing narratives in the refractories industry – from significant M&A activity to raw material price spikes, and from booming end-market demand to uncertainties in global trade – Industrial Minerals correspondent Myles McCormick takes stock of a changed landscape for companies operating in the sector.
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The non-metallurgical alumina market is diverse and complex and, over the past year, its main sub-sectors have been under pressure from rising costs and hiccups in supply, limiting availability of white fused, alumina hydrate and calcined alumina to the wider market, independent consultant, Ted Dickson, discovers.
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Artificial intelligence and machine learning are at the forefront of digital solutions that could dramatically improve efficiency in the mineral processing sector. But mining companies have been reluctant to invest in the technology needed to revolutionize their operations.
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Cheap Chinese alumina has been undercutting abrasives prices and output in North America and elsewhere for several years, but recent supply restrictions in China could reverse this trend, as Industrial Minerals correspondent Rose Pengelly discovers.
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China’s high-profile disruptions to industrial operations have wreaked havoc in the bauxite and alumina supply chains serving refractories end markets, taking prices to new highs.
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As non-metallurgical alumina markets are facing a combination of tight supply, high demand and rising prices, Industrial Minerals caught up with Gildas Fontaine, marketing, business development and communication director at France-based speciality alumina supplier Alteo, to discuss what is in store for calcined alumina and the future prospects of global speciality markets.
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While porous ceramic membranes for nanofiltration of liquids have been widely adopted, take-up of dense ceramic membranes for gas separation has been relatively slow to follow. IM Correspondent Rose Pengelly looks into this lesser known corner of the technical ceramics industry and discovers some of its most promising applications.
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If 2016 should be remembered with a shudder, then 2017 will be remembered as the year when it became harder to source minerals. The supply situation changed for many minerals in the markets that Industrial Minerals covers, not least because many producers were simply shut down by strict environmental laws in China, or found it harder to source materials due to demand-side challenges, consultant editor Siobhan Lismore-Scott writes.
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Long dismissed as the Cinderella of the commodities world, industrial minerals were regarded as high bulk, low value for most outside the network which makes up our world. But after 50 years IM is looking forward to a glittering future - and so are those at the top of the industrial minerals tree, interviewed in turn about the changing face of the industry.
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Demand for refractory products is evolving, forcing suppliers to upgrade their offers and processes to stay ahead of the game, while Chinese-origin raw materials are appreciating on the back of supply shortages, making productions costlier, Davide Ghilotti, IM Chief Reporter, finds.
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One of the largest markets for industrial minerals, refractories are essential for producing steel, glass, ceramics, cement and lime and for many other processes requiring high temperatures. But as Richard Flook* explains, despite their crucial role, manufacturers of these products are facing significant challenges from changing global trends.
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Booming steel production has helped prop up demand for Indian refractories amid lacklustre demand from cement and foundries, but as Sunder Singh, IM Correspondent explains, the country’s relatively healthy market is attracting increased foreign competition.
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In the wake of President Trump’s announcement that the US will be pulling out of the 2015 Paris Climate Treaty,
IM looks at the significance of this move and the possible impact this will have on the industrial minerals market.
By Mark Rowe
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Technical ceramics are opening up new possibilities in everything from spaceships to dentistry, but the closed nature of the industry’s raw materials supply chain may be holding the sector back, Davide Ghilotti, Chief Reporter, finds.
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High purity alumina is typically produced via an add-on
stage to traditional alumina extraction from bauxite, but at least two companies are on the cusp of breaking into the material’s supply chain with revolutionary new processing methods, Cameron Perks, IM Correspondent, finds.
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Jessica Roberts assesses the health of the refractory industry’s key consumers so far in 2016, and outlines longer term trends that look to influence the market this year and beyond.
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As the US Geological Survey prepares to issue a special publication on the mineral resources of Iran, the international business community is kicking its heels in frustration about the snail’s pace of progress towards establishing trade links with the Islamic Republic, Rose Pengelly, IM Correspondent, writes.
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