Week in Review: Aluminum smelter labor deal; copper prices; pandemic challenges for brewers

Before the weekend, let’s take a look at the week that was and the metals storylines here on MetalMiner, including an aluminum smelter labor deal, copper prices, environmental policy developments and more:
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Week of April 19-23 (aluminum labor deal, copper prices and more)

• Stuart Burns on copper price movements and where the red metal might go from here.
• Century Aluminum and the United Steelworkers union reached a new five-year labor deal.
• Tata Steel will introduce a new carbon surcharge on HRC and CRC contracts.
• The zinc narrative is similar to that of copper.
• The US steel sector’s capacity utilization ticked up to 78.0% last week.
• Facebook and Indian firm CleanMax have reached a deal on a wind power project in India.
• Temperance Beer Co. founder Josh Gilbert chatted about what the last year has been like for his brewery, from rising materials costs to changes in consumer preferences.
• General Motors this week debuted another electric vehicle, the Cadillac LYRIC.
• Russia’s NLMK Group benefited from strong demand and high steel prices in Q1, MetalMiner’s Christopher Rivituso explained.
• Burns opined on the latest environmental policy announcements from the UK and US governments.
• Cleveland-Cliffs’ steelmaking revenues skyrocketed in Q1 2021.
• Burns again weighed in on environmental policy efforts and what needs to happen next.
• Lastly, the Clean Sheet Project at the University of Michigan seeks to develop better ways to produce lightweight, recyclable automotive sheet metals.

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