Long Read: Hongqiao’s Trials and Tribulations in 2017
The world’s largest aluminium firm has had a challenging year. From a series of damaging anonymous reports from short sellers...
Features
The Promised Road: Where is China’s Aluminium Industry Headed? (Part 1)
*Overcapacity: policy failure or implementation issue? *How will the policies be enforced this winter? *Will the shuttered capacity be restarted after March? *Where is China’s aluminium industry headed? The heating season in northern China has officially arrived. At the same...
Low-carbon Aluminium Boosts Industry’s Green Credentials
Global warming remains one of the leading critical global issues – emphasised in the last Paris accord and this month’s...
Why Trimet Aluminium is betting on EnPot’s virtual battery
Trimet Aluminium SE is not just Germany’s biggest aluminium producer and one of the leading players in Europe, it is...
Events
Will Aluminij Mostar survive?
Aluminij Mostar d.d., an aluminium smelter based in Bosnia & Herzegovina, celebrated this year twenty years since restarting production in 1997, after being severely damaged in the Bosnian war (1992-1995). But few had any reason to be cheerful: the smelter is going through an existential crisis that could very well seal its fate. Blighted by […]
The Electric Vehicle Revolution Will Spur Aluminium Demand
In stark contrast to previous editions, electric vehicles were all the rage at this year’s Frankfurt IAA, the world’s largest motor show. Many premium brand announced they would electrify entire series or that their fleets will be a mix of hybrid and battery-powered vehicles. Aiming to catch up to Tesla, European automakers are increasingly favouring […]
Aluminium-Lithium Alloys Fight Back
When it comes to the aviation industry, new technologies and manufacturing techniques have been mounting a silent revolution in the latest generation of commercial twin-aisle aircraft: the Boeing 787 Dreamliner and Airbus A350. Both these aircraft contain around 50% of CFRP composites, as opposed to their previous iterations where aluminium alloys had dominated. This explains […]
Shifting Aluminium Consumption Habits in India
With the Indian government’s thrust to increase indigenous production and build Smart Cities in full swing, the country is on the cusp of a tectonic shift as aluminium consumption is increasingly shifting towards value added products. If electricals were traditionally the mainstays of the industry, the metal is finding growing acceptability in emerging segments like […]
Better Times Ahead For the Aluminium Industry
Even if it was obvious that aluminium prices will rise in the second half of the year, there were no signs that this would occur in August. The month started with aluminium on the backfoot, as prices shortly dipped below US$ 1890/t, before breaching the US$ 2000/t mark for the first time since December 2014. […]
Zhongwang Fake Semis Prosecution May Slam The Door On Key Routes For U.S. Import Duty Avoidance
The global aluminium market has been watching the trials and travails of Chinese behemoth Zhongwang with intense interest for the past few weeks after the company and its founder Liu Zhongtian were brought up on criminal charges by the United States federal ...
Aluminium Prices Under Double Pressure: Trade Wars and Chinese Exports
Base metals prices tumbled to their lowest in several weeks at the start of August, after U.S. President Donald Trump ...
Dirty Metal – China’s Troublesome Tether Between Coal And Aluminium
The year 2019 has been a red-letter year for the aluminium sector in the People’s Republic of China. Despite trade ...
Is Rio Tinto’s ISAL smelter a bargain or a smart investment?
At least three companies (including Swiss commodity trader Glencore and German Trimet Aluminium) have expressed interest in buying Rio Tinto’s ...
