Twitter

Aluminium/Bauxite

Aluminum Risks Return to Crisis With Rusal Left Out in the Cold – by Mark Burton and Yuliya Fedorinova (Bloomberg News – September 10, 2018)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

The aluminum industry is running out of time to avoid another crisis as U.S. sanctions leave United Co. Rusal locked out of crucial contract negotiations kicking off this week in Berlin.

The U.S. allowed Rusal customers with existing supply deals to keep doing business with the company until Oct. 23, but not to sign new contracts.

Unless the U.S. Treasury lifts the sanctions in time — which remains a possibility — the No. 2 supplier of aluminum will be sidelined from the annual negotiations and could soon be forced to scale back output of products used in everything from alloy wheels to airplane fuselages.

Read more

Aluminum Seen Facing ‘Doomsday’ If Rusal Sanctions Proceed (Bloomberg News – September 7, 2018)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

Aluminum faces a “doomsday scenario” if the U.S. proceeds with sanctions on United Co. Rusal in October, according to Wood Mackenzie Ltd., which says prices could exceed their seven-year highs in April.

The market outside China is already in deficit, and would go “into a massive shortage” if a producer the size of Rusal can’t supply metal, Julian Kettle, vice chairman of metals and mining, said in an interview in Singapore. “Prices will move to a level where you will get demand destruction” as buyers start switching to alternative materials, he said.

Aluminum spiked in April after U.S. sanctions on Rusal upended global supply chains, which were already under pressure from lower output at Alunorte in Brazil.

Read more

Aluminum products maker Arconic in talks to sell itself: sources – by Harry Brumpton and Greg Roumeliotis (Reuters U.S. – August 24, 2018)

https://www.reuters.com/

(Reuters) – Aluminum products maker Arconic Inc is discussing acquisition offers for the entire company, even though it announced a sale process last month only for its building and construction systems unit, people familiar with the matter said.

The move comes after Arconic, which was spun out of Alcoa Corp in 2016, said in February it would carry out a “strategy and portfolio review,” to be completed by the end of 2018, but has provided little detail about what this entails.

Arconic is speaking with private equity firms that have shown interest in acquiring the company, including a consortium of Blackstone Group LP and Carlyle Group LP, another consortium of KKR & Co and Onex Corp, as well as Apollo Global Management LLC, the sources said on Friday.

Read more

COLUMN-U.S. disrupts aluminium supply chain, but not where it counts – by Andy Home (Reuters U.K. – August 23, 2018)

https://uk.reuters.com/

LONDON, Aug 23 (Reuters) – In the United States, old aluminium smelters are being brought back to life. On Wednesday Century Aluminum held an official ceremony to celebrate the reactivation of the first of three idled potlines at its Hawesville plant in Kentucky.

The smelter, which first started production in 1969, has been running at just 40 percent of its 252,000 tonne annual capacity since 2015 and was teetering on the edge of full closure.

Hawesville’s life-line has come from the imposition of 10-percent tariffs on U.S. imports of aluminium and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross was guest of honour at yesterday’s official bash. In Russia, meanwhile, old aluminium smelters are being closed down.

Read more

Commentary: China may end up inadvertent winner from Trump’s aluminium tariffs – by Clyde Russell (Reuters U.K. – August 13, 2018)

https://uk.reuters.com/

LAUNCESTON, Australia (Reuters) – It’s probably not what U.S. President Donald Trump had in mind when imposing tariffs on aluminium imports, but it looks likely that some of the big winners from the 10 percent import tax will be China’s producers.

While Chinese aluminium companies now face the same tariff obstacle as other exporters to the United States, they appear better placed to benefit from some of the (most likely) unintended consequences of the Trump administration’s policies.

The Trump tariffs and measures against major Russian producer Rusal, along with a strike at Alcoa’s alumina and bauxite operations in Western Australia are combining to roil aluminium markets.

Read more

Ford Calls Rising Steel, Aluminum Prices ‘Significant Headwind’ – by Keith Naughton (Bloomberg News – August 8, 2018)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

Rising steel and aluminum prices, driven up by President Donald Trump’s tariffs on those commodities, are a substantial drag on Ford Motor Co.’s business, though a top executive said the company doesn’t plan to pass higher costs on to consumers.

“The escalation of steel and aluminum prices is really significant,” Jim Farley, Ford’s president of global markets, said after a factory ceremony near Detroit to commemorate building the 10 millionth Mustang muscle car. “It’s a significant headwind for us. It’s something that puts pressure on our own costs.”

Ford began the year by warning that rising costs for raw materials like steel and aluminum, coupled with unfavorable exchange rates, would add $1.6 billion to its costs this year.

Read more

Soup, pop and beer companies to increase prices to combat aluminum tariffs – by Tara Deschamps (Canadian Press/Toronto Star – August 7, 2018)

https://www.thestar.com/

Soup, pop and beer makers can’t seem to put a lid on the effects of the recent aluminum tariffs. The 10 per cent fees that were slapped on imports of the metal by U.S. President Donald Trump in early July are making cans more expensive and forcing food and beverage companies that rely on them for packaging to consider price increases and other ways to offset the costs.

The Campbell Company of Canada, which produces canned soup at its soon-to-close Etobicoke plant, is set to jack up prices in late August on a “broad range of products.”

The exact amount by which prices will be increased is still under consideration, but the tariffs combined with raising freight, packaging and ingredient costs are to blame, company spokesperson Alexandra Sockett told The Canadian Press in an email.

Read more

Canadian craft brewers scramble for aluminum cans – by Marcy Nicholson (Reuters U.S. – July 31, 2018)

https://www.reuters.com/

CALGARY (Reuters) – Canadian microbreweries are facing a shortage of cans and higher costs, forcing some to cut beer production after the country imposed retaliatory import duties on U.S. aluminum imports in the busy summer season.

Though Canada is the world’s third biggest aluminum producer and cans are made in the country, beer makers also rely on the import of more than 2 billion cans annually, largely from the United States, Statistics Canada data shows.

So when Canada struck back at the United States’ tariffs on aluminum imports on July 1, and included cans, some craft brewers received notices of higher prices due to the duties while others have been unable to secure their usual supply of aluminum cans.

Read more

Rio’s $7 Billion Windfall Points to Mining’s Lesson Learned – by Thomas Biesheuvel, David Stringer and Martin Ritchie (Bloomberg News – August 1, 2018)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

Rio Tinto Group’s $7 billion pledge to shareholders is the latest sign the world’s biggest miners are resisting the temptation to backslide.

The mining industry has undergone a dramatic makeover since the end of the last commodity boom. Investors and management remain wary of pricey deals after much of the sector got burned by overpaying for assets and few among the largest producers see the need for major new supply growth.

Rio is generating massive amounts of cash even as cost pressures rise, and its low debt levels mean the No. 2 miner has financial capacity to move on acquisitions or projects. For now, it’s holding fire.

Read more

Commentary: A turbulent year for alumina market could get still worse – by Andy Home (Reuters U.K. – July 31, 2018)

https://uk.reuters.com/

LONDON (Reuters) – Alumina is having a turbulent year. The intermediate product sitting between bauxite and refined metal on the aluminium production chain doesn’t normally grab the headlines.

But it did in April, when the spot price doubled to over $700 per tonne as the market reacted to U.S. sanctions on Oleg Deripaska and his Rusal empire.

The sanctions threw into doubt the future of Rusal’s Aughinish alumina plant in Ireland, threatening a second blow to global production after the part closure of the Alunorte refinery in Brazil.

Read more

Trump’s aluminum tariffs are unlikely to produce a major smelter revival, experts say – by Daniel Dale (Toronto Star – July 28, 2018)

https://www.thestar.com/

WASHINGTON—Three weeks after President Donald Trump proclaimed that America’s aluminum businesses were booming, “through the roof,” because of his tariffs, America’s largest aluminum producer made its quarterly earnings announcement.

Alcoa said it was still earning billions. But it also said it was lowering its profit forecast. Part of the reason: the tariffs, which it expected to cost $14 million (U.S.) a month. The company operates three smelters in Canada, which Trump declined to exempt.

Alcoa’s complaint highlighted the scant corporate support for the 10 per cent tariffs. Unlike Trump’s 25 per cent steel tariffs, which were endorsed by U.S. steelmakers, the industry group for the American aluminum industry is opposed to the aluminum tariffs.

Read more

Commentary: Smelter hits halt global aluminium production growth – by Andy Home (Reuters U.K. – July 25, 2018)

https://uk.reuters.com/

LONDON (Reuters) – Global aluminium production growth ground to a standstill in the first half of this year. The world’s smelters produced 31.76 million tonnes of metal in January-June, a 1 percent decline on the first half of 2017, according to the International Aluminium Institute (IAI).

Expressed in annualised terms, global output in June was almost two million tonnes lower than a year earlier. Production outside of China has been creeping higher since January but the growth rate is being constrained by an unusually high level of disruption with multiple plants operating at reduced rates.

National run rates in China, the world’s largest single producer, have also been recovering from last year’s combination of “illegal” capacity closures and winter heating season restrictions but are still down on year-earlier levels.

Read more

Chinese aluminum foil maker sues U.S. over anti-dumping duties – by Tom Daly (Reuters U.S. – July 23, 2018)

https://www.reuters.com/

BEIJING (Reuters) – Chinese aluminum foil producer Shantou Wanshun Package Material Stock Co on Monday said its subsidiary is suing the United States over twin anti-dumping and anti-subsidy duties Washington imposed on its shipments.

In a statement to the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, Wanshun said Jiangsu Zhongji Lamination Materials, which was hit with a countervailing duty of 17.14 percent and an anti-dumping duty of 37.99 percent earlier this year, had filed a lawsuit with the U.S. Court of International Trade.

Zhongji was among the Chinese foil companies that unsuccessfully filed a joint “no injury” claim with the U.S. International Trade Commission last year as Washington probed whether the companies were unfairly subsidised, and is now trying to reverse the duties on its own.

Read more

COLUMN-Pain for aluminium shorts as LME gets squeezed again – by Andy Home (Reuters U.K. – July 13, 2018)

https://uk.reuters.com/

LONDON, July 13 (Reuters) – Aluminium hasn’t escaped the broader industrial metals rout. The London Metal Exchange (LME) aluminium price has on Friday morning touched $2,021.50 per tonne, its lowest level since April.

The “Russian Premium”, which resulted from the April 6 imposition of U.S. sanctions on Oleg Deripaska and his Russian aluminium empire Rusal, has been fully unwound.

The market is expecting sanctions to be lifted but aluminium’s slide is also part of a broader metals retreat as macro concerns trump micro narratives. That LME price, however, is for metal in three months time, a quirk of the London market that sets the global price benchmark.

Read more

COLUMN-Beer versus aluminium; the U.S. battle-lines are drawn again – by Andy Home (Reuters U.K. – July 9, 2018)

https://uk.reuters.com/

LONDON, July 9 (Reuters) – The price of aluminium paid by consumers in the United States has risen sharply this year. This is not entirely surprising, given the imposition from the start of March of a 10-percent tariff on just about all imports of the metal.

But has the price risen too much? The Beer Institute, which represents the country’s more than 5,000 brewers, thinks so.

It has asked the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission to “address potentially anticompetitive activities in the aluminum market that are driving up aluminum prices”. Thirty-two U.S. lawmakers think so as well.

Read more