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Aluminium/Bauxite

Trudeau stops in Canada’s aluminum country before facing Trump on tariffs at G7 – by Andy Blatchford (CTV News – June 7, 2018)

https://www.ctvnews.ca/

CANADIAN PRESS: SAGUENAY, Que. – Just before he headed to the G7 summit, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made a stop in the heart of Canada’s aluminum country – where he repeated his pledge to try to convince Donald Trump that his heavy-handed tariff strategy is a big mistake.

Trudeau shook hands and posed for photos with locals inside a busy shopping mall Thursday as he campaigned in Quebec’s Saguenay region in support of a Liberal candidate running in an upcoming federal byelection. But there were global politics at play, too.

Saguenay has a significant connection to what will be a major point of debate for G7 leaders this week because the region is home to a big part of the country’s aluminum industry.

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Tariffs on steel and aluminum might cost the U.S. 400,000 jobs — and Canada could get hit too – by Jessica Vomiero (Global News – June 6, 2018)

https://globalnews.ca/

A report released Tuesday by the Washington-based trade and economic consulting firm claims that for every steel and aluminum job saved by the Trump administration’s tariffs on imports, 16 more will be lost.

“Basically, the report finds not surprisingly that the tariffs would increase employment in the steel and the aluminum sectors, but what it shows pretty clearly is that a large number of other workers would lose jobs in the process as higher steel costs ripple through the economy,” said Laura Baughman, one of the report’s authors.

Trade Partnership Worldwide LLC released the report this week, which claims that over 400,000 jobs will be lost in other sectors of the economy due to higher prices on steel and aluminum. The industry that could be most impacted, with over 375,000 jobs lost, will be the services sector.

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A $10 billion China deal to mine bauxite in Ghana is facing fierce environmental pushback – by Kwasi Gyamfi Asiedu (Quartz Africa – June 5, 2018)

https://qz.com/

Accra, Ghana – At 232 square kilometers, the Atewa Forest Reserve in Ghana’s Eastern Region is home to rare flora and fauna including two butterfly species not found anywhere else in the world – Mylothris atewa and Anthene helpsi – and a rediscovered West African White-naped Managbey monkey classified as ‘endangered’ on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.

The reserve is also the source of three major rivers that serve five million people including residents of Accra, the capital. Local residents and environmental campaigners fear the ecosystem would be irreversibly decimated if plans for a multi-billion dollar deal with the Chinese Development Bank to mine bauxite in the forest goes on.
Bauxite is the ore of aluminum – which is used to make a variety of things including airplanes, cars, cooking utensils and some types of cement.

The $10 billion deal, agreed back in June 2017, Ghana will give up about 5% of its bauxite to China. China would then pay Ghana with a variety of infrastructure projects including expanding the rail network, building new roads and bridges. 

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U.S. tariffs on Canada’s aluminum industry will raise costs — for U.S. manufacturers – by Naomi Powell (Financial Post – June 5, 2018)

http://business.financialpost.com/

On Friday morning, a truck hauled out of a shipping yard at Sotrem-Maltech in Saguenay, Que. packed with specialty aluminum ingots bound for a foundry in the Midwestern United States. There, they were slated to be transformed into complex parts used in the manufacture of U.S. military vehicles, including four-wheel drive trucks and carriers.

It was a typical order for the company, but one that happened to take place less than 24 hours after the United States imposed sweeping tariffs of 10 per cent on Canadian aluminum — all on grounds of national security.

“Nothing much has changed for us, no,” said Patrick Dube, commercial director for Sotrem-Maltech, which also makes aluminum granules for coatings on U.S. aircraft carriers. “There are very few companies who do what we do and they are all at full capacity. The only change is that it will cost 10 per cent more. And we don’t know who will pay for that, the customers or us.”

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Commentary: U.S. aluminium tariffs; collateral damage and a missed target – by Andy Home (Reuters U.K. – June 1, 2018)

https://uk.reuters.com/

LONDON (Reuters) – So the trade wars begin. As of today the United States will impose tariffs on imports of steel and aluminium from Canada, Mexico and the European Union (EU). Canada and Mexico have already responded in kind. The EU won’t be far behind.

Steel and aluminium are but pawns in a bigger trade game, the unique characteristics of each supply chain forgotten as the U.S. administration ratchets up the negotiating pressure on its NAFTA partners and adds autos to its list of grievances with the EU.

The loss of focus is a shame because aluminium in particular shows why tariffs are such a poor trade weapon, managing both to cause maximum collateral damage and miss the prime target. Which is China.

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Trump’s Metal Tariffs Send Corporate Canada Reeling in Disbelief – by Frederic Tomesco (Bloomberg News – June 1, 2018)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

To get a sense of the disbelief gripping Canadian manufacturers since the U.S. imposed metal import tariffs, have a chat with Marc Dutil. “I just want to scream,” the chief executive officer of structural-steel maker Canam Group Inc. said Friday by phone. “All this is doing is creating uncertainty. It’s the last thing we needed.”

Canam, ironically, is bidding for work on the Gordie Howe International Bridge, the new structure planned to connect Detroit and Windsor, Ontario.

“In theory, the bridge is supposed to stand for the close relationship between our two countries,” Dutil said. “It’s supposed to be built with North American steel, but that steel will be taxed. I can’t see how that will help the economy.”

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US defense sector braces for Trump tariff fallout – by Joe Gould and Aaron Mehta (Defense News – May 31, 2018)

https://www.defensenews.com/

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration’s announcement that it will impose tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from Europe, Mexico and Canada may hurt America‘s defense sector and imperil domestic jobs, analysts warn.

The tariffs, which will impose a 25 percent surcharge on imported steel and 10 percent on aluminum, will go into effect Friday, as the administration follows through on the penalties after earlier granting exemptions to buy time for negotiations. U.S. President Donald Trump announced the tariffs in March, citing national security concerns.

Europe and Mexico pledged to retaliate, exacerbating trans-Atlantic and North American trade tensions. The European Commission’s president, Jean-Claude Juncker, said Trump’s decision amounted to trade “protectionism, pure and simple,” adding that Europe would respond with countermeasures.

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Commentary: Sanctions stresses still bubbling in aluminium market – by Andy Home (Reuters U.K. – May 17, 2018)

https://uk.reuters.com/

LONDON (Reuters) – The initial sanctions shockwaves may have passed but the aluminium market is still structurally stressed by the U.S. Treasury’s action against Oleg Deripaska and his Rusal aluminium empire.

The price explosion after the original April 6 sanctions announcement went into reverse on April 23, when the U.S. Treasury extended the deadline until October and held out an olive branch to Rusal (but not Deripaska).

After hitting a seven-year high of $2,718 per tonne on April 19 the London Metal Exchange (LME) aluminium price has retreated to a current $2,268. The market seems to be betting that Deripaska’s offer to reduce his stake in and remove himself from Rusal will result in a swift lifting of the sanctions that have roiled the supply chain.

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Canada / U.S. big players announce world’s first carbon-free aluminum smelting process – by Valentina Ruiz Leotaud (Mining.com – May 10, 2018)

http://www.mining.com/

In an official event that included Canada’s Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, Québec’s Premier, Philippe Couillard, and Apple’s CEO, Tim Cook, Alcoa (NYSE: AA) and Rio Tinto (ASX, LON:RIO) announced the launching of Elysis, a joint venture company whose goal is to push towards commercial production a newly discovered, carbon-free aluminum smelting process.

At the event, executives from the companies involved explained that the innovative aluminum-making method produces oxygen and eliminates all direct greenhouse gas emissions from the traditional smelting process.

As an example, they said that, if fully implemented at existing aluminum smelters, the technology could eliminate the equivalent of 6.5 million metric tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions in Canada. This represents an amount roughly equal to taking nearly 1.8 million light-duty vehicles off the road.

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Sanctions impact casts shadow over Rusal profit jump – by Melanie Burton and Katya Golubkova (Reuters U.S. – May 10, 2018)

https://www.reuters.com/

MELBOURNE/MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian aluminum giant Rusal on Friday warned of expected harm to its business from U.S. sanctions, sending its shares down more than 7 percent despite the company reporting a 20 percent jump in first-quarter core profit.

Washington last month announced sanctions on Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska and several companies in which he is a large shareholder, including Rusal, En+ Group and GAZ Group, in response to what the United States said were Russia’s “malign activities”.

Though Rusal, the world’s biggest aluminum producer, said longer-term effects of the sanctions and the threat of additional future sanctions are difficult to determine, the company said it warned that the impact is highly likely to be “materially adverse”.

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U.S. delays steel, aluminum tariffs for second time; June 1 set as new deadline – by Alexander Panetta (Financial Post – May 1, 2018)

http://business.financialpost.com/

CANADIAN PRESS – WASHINGTON — The United States has delayed the imposition of steel and aluminum tariffs for another month, with a late-evening announcement Monday that pushed the internationally contentious issue off to June 1.

The announcement came just before the deadline for the tariffs taking effect and marked the second such delay over an issue that has threatened to spark a global trade war.

The White House said it would pause tariffs for Canada, Mexico and the European Union; would soon announce steel and aluminum agreements with Argentina, Australia and Brazil; and had already reached a deal with South Korea.

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As steel tariffs squeeze U.S. businesses, uncertainty threatens economic growth – by Don Lee (Los Angeles Times – April 29, 2018)

http://www.latimes.com/

“We’re in the dark, just like everybody else,” said an executive of a West Coast steel importer. “This administration has been supposedly pro-business, but business doesn’t like uncertainty,” groused a distributor of stainless steel, who, like others, requested anonymity to avoid antagonizing officials.

These should be good times for American manufacturers, construction firms, canners and others that use industrial metals for their business. The U.S. economy is perking along, and tax cuts and global growth are helping boost demand.

But since President Trump abruptly slapped hefty tariffs on billions of dollars’ worth of imported steel and aluminum on March 23, the outlook has turned hazy for many — downright bleak for some.

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Aluminum market to rebalance, prices to hold steady: Reuters poll – by Eric Onstad (Reuters U.S. – April 30, 2018)

https://www.reuters.com/

LONDON (Reuters) – Aluminum market deficits are set to deepen, but the market is likely to rebalance once the dust settles after U.S. sanctions on Russian producer Rusal, leaving prices little changed, a Reuters poll showed.

Prices on the London Metal Exchange soared by a third, lifting the metal to its highest in nearly seven years, after the United States imposed sanctions this month against billionaire Oleg Deripaska and his company Rusal, the world’s No.2 aluminum producer.

However, much of those gains were lost after the deadline to comply with the sanctions was extended by several months. “Sanctions against Rusal are the main market theme. However, according to our estimates, restarts of U.S. capacity and excess capacity in China should easily compensate for lower Russian exports,” said Daniela Corsini, commodity market economist at Intesa Sanpaolo in Milan.

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U.S. aluminum producers urge permanent tariff exemptions for Canada – by Naomi Powell (Financial Post – April 27, 2018)

http://business.financialpost.com/

American aluminum producers have issued a plea to U.S. President Donald Trump to grant permanent tariff exemptions to trading partners including Canada, arguing the levies would hurt downstream manufacturers who rely on the imported metal.

The appeal from the industry’s main trade association in the United States comes as Canada’s temporary reprieve from tariffs of 10 per cent on aluminum and 25 per cent on steel is set to expire on May 1. The U.S. has said the exemptions are dependent on the successful renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement, which remains the subject of intense negotiations in Washington.

“I urge you to grant permanent exemptions — without quotas — for our aluminum trading partners that operate as market economies,” Heidi Brock, chief executive of the U.S. aluminum association said in a letter to Trump this week. “I also encourage you to engage China to address structural aluminum overcapacity.”

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Commentary: U.S. sanctions on Rusal shatter aluminium’s supply chain – by Andy Home (Reuters U.K. – April 26, 2018)

https://uk.reuters.com/

LONDON (Reuters) – “Our industry is going to suffer from disruption, distortion and damage. April 2018 has not been a good month for aluminium globally.”

That was the view of Ron Knapp, secretary-general of the International Aluminium Institute (IAI), in his opening address to CRU’s World Aluminium Conference in London.

And none of analysts, traders, producers and consumers listening would disagree, given the carnage unleashed by the April 6 imposition of U.S. sanctions on Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska and his Rusal aluminium empire.

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