Non-ferrous Metals

The Role of Indexes and Longer-Term Fixed Prices

by Lisa Reisman on April 12, 2012

Style:    Category: Commodities, Metal Prices, Sourcing Strategies

Keywords: , ,

I recently came across a newsletter article with great relevance to MetalMiner readers – How to Fix Index Based Pricing – that offered up three suggestions for individuals seeking to develop a price indexing schema for purchases. The author states a hypothesis often not articulated by the purchasing organization – having a “fixed, predictable price is just [...]

{ 0 comments }

Coal and Mineral Mining Solutions: What Manufacturers Can Learn from ‘Pit To Port’

by Taras Berezowsky on April 11, 2012

Style:    Category: Commodities, Company News, Logistics

Keywords: , , ,

We at MetalMiner are always on the lookout for sourcing efficiencies in the industrial metals supply chain — and those who make said efficiencies their business. That’s one of the main reasons we chose the sponsors that we did for our recent MetalMiner and Spend Matters conference, Commodity EDGE; they are all at the top [...]

{ 0 comments }

Lights Out for Rio Tinto Alcan Plant: What Plant Starts and Shutdowns Say About Energy Policy – Part Two

by Lisa Reisman on April 2, 2012

Style:    Category: Non-ferrous Metals, Public Policy

Keywords: , , ,

The first part of this story appears here. Century Aluminum, Rio Tinto Alcan and Alcoa all find themselves in a similar position with regard to shedding higher-cost smelting capacity.  This piece discusses Alcoa’s move to cut approximately 12 percent of its higher cost smelting capacity. We caught up with Jorge Vazquez of Harbor Aluminum to [...]

{ 0 comments }

Lights Out for Rio Tinto Alcan Plant – What Plant Starts and Shutdowns Say About Energy Policy

by Lisa Reisman on April 2, 2012

Style:    Category: Company News, Non-ferrous Metals, Public Policy

Keywords: , , ,

Source: JournalLive Back during the global market meltdown, it seemed as though every single metal producer announced line shutdowns or plant shutdowns. We all knew why, of course – demand had dried up like a raisin in the sun, or so the saying goes. But with manufacturing demand healthy (and still growing according to numerous [...]

{ 1 comment }

Sand Flea Robot To Help US Military in Afghanistan

by Brianna Tonner on March 30, 2012

Style:    Category: Humor, Non-ferrous Metals, Product Developments

Keywords: , , ,

Boston Dynamics is at it again. With help from researchers at Sandia National Laboratories, the innovative engineering company, known for its work on the speedy, record-breaking Cheetah and the four-legged BigDog, which we discussed in an earlier post, has developed yet another talented metal bot: the Sand Flea. Resembling a remote control car no bigger [...]

{ 1 comment }

India’s Nalco Invests Big in 2013

by TC Malhotra on March 26, 2012

Style:    Category: Company News, Non-ferrous Metals, Supply & Demand

Keywords: , , ,

The government–controlled aluminum company, National Aluminum Company Limited (NALCO) plans to invest Rs 23.43 billion ($478 million) next fiscal year, to increase capacity, reports Business Line. Citing the 2012-13 budget documents, the newspaper report says that the proposed investment represents a 76 percent increase in the capital expenditure budget as compared to the previous year. [...]

{ 0 comments }

Don’t Find Yourself on the EDGE of the Commodity Volcano

by Taras Berezowsky on March 16, 2012

Style:    Category: Commodities, Sourcing Strategies

Keywords: ,

Our editors had the chance to speak to a couple leading analysts in the commodities sphere recently. These analysts are unlike we’d ever encountered before. Their real-world market examples hit very close to home. Their metaphors bristled with creativity and helped us bridge the gap between what commodity markets are doing, and how companies should [...]

{ 0 comments }

How Manufacturers Can Use Black Swan Events to Their Sourcing Advantage

by Taras Berezowsky on March 15, 2012

Style:    Category: Commodities, Macroeconomics, Sourcing Strategies

Keywords: , ,

Lisa Reisman spoke with Omer Abdullah, co-founder and managing director of The Smart Cube, Inc., about how companies are — and should be — thinking about black swan events and their impact on commodity sourcing. *Hear Omer speak in person next Monday, March 19 — he will be leading a roundtable session titled “Forecasting, Statistical [...]

{ 0 comments }

← Previous Entries