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COMPANY NEWS
people and recorded 2006 revenues
of 34 million euros.
Bright ideas from Novelis Europe
Novelis Inc. has introduced a new
line of bright finish aluminium sheet
products from its Bresso plant in Milan,
Italy, and is working on further
expanding its offerings using fusion
layering technology. The new product
range includes lacquered and
uncoated specialty bright sheet in a
number of alloys with thicknesses
ranging from 0.25 mm to 1 mm and
widths of up to 1250 mm.
Bright finish aluminium sheet is
used in applications in which high
reflective qualities and image clarity
combined with strength and lightweight
are important. Such material
is used in lighting, cosmetics packag-
ing, automotive, ceilings, refrigerators
and packaging closures.
Alcoa and Sapa get
clearance from EU
The European Commission has
cleared the creation of the soft alloy
extrusion joint venture announced
by Alcoa and Sapa late last year. The
commission has concluded that the
transaction would not significantly
impede effective competition in European
Economic Area or any substantial
part of it. The joint venture was announced
in November 2006 as part of
a downstream restructuring by Alcoa
which has 22 facilities in eight countries
and about 6,400 employees. Sapa
will contribute 18 facilities in twelve
countries and about 6,000 employees
to the joint venture. �
The Author
The author, Dipl.-Ing. Rudolf P.
Pawlek is founder of TS+C, Technical
Info Services and Consulting, Sierre
(Switzerland), a new service for the
primary aluminum industry. He is also
the publisher of the standard works
“Alumina Refineries and Producers of
the World” and “Primary Aluminium
Smelters and Producers of the World”.
These reference works are continually
updated, and contain useful technical
and economic information on all alumina
refineries and primary aluminum
smelters of the world. They are available
as loose-leaf files and/or CD-roms
from the Aluminium-Verlag, Marketing
& Kommunikation GmbH in Düsseldorf
as well as by online ordering via www.
aluweb.de (Alu-Bookshop) from Giesel
Verlag GmbH.
Chinese aluminium production growth slows slightly
Aluminium production growth
rates in the rest of the world are
nothing compared with those
in China. The country’s production
was growing by 38.8% to
2,859,000 tonnes in the first quarter
of this year. However, there are
some very tentative signs that this
super fast growth rate is starting to
lose momentum.
Production growth in March itself at
37.1% was off the pace of February’s
40.3% and January’s 39%. There are
expectations that the surge in production
growth in China, caused by the
country’s accelerated alumina output
growth and the resulting drop in
alumina prices in 2006, will become
more muted as this year unfolds. There
are also hopes that the Chinese authorities
will make some progress on
slowing down this breakneck speed
of production growth. The powerful
state planning body, the National Development
and Reform Commission,
has just issued an Emergency Circular
on Curbing Rebound of Investment in
Aluminium Industry. Although many
of the measures included are simply a
reiteration of past attempts to control
blind investment in the smelter sector,
Beijing seems more intent than
ever on pushing its message down to
the provincial level. It is also sending
out teams to oversee local implementation
of its order that provincial governments
suspend preferential power
tariffs to local energy-intensive industries
in a tacit acknowledgement that
Beijing’s best intentions have tended
to founder on implementation at the
local level.
On the other hand there are still no
signs of any slowdown in the breakneck
speed at which Chinese production
of alumina is growing. Production
in March was 1,658,200 tonnes, up
65.3% year-on-year. Cumulative production
in the first quarter of 2007
was up by 53.7% year-on-year at
4,274,800 tonnes. Annualised alumina
production in March was 19.5 million
tonnes, compared with just 11.9
million tonnes in March 2006. Both
the China Nonferrous Metals Industry
Association and the Antaike research
have forecast production to rise to 20
million tonnes in 2007 from 13.2 million
tonnes in 2006 but those forecasts
are already starting to look too conservative
while the sort of the growth
rate is maintained. China’s alumina
production is expected to reach 27.7
million tonnes by the end of 2007 and
China will still need to import 4 to 5
million tonnes of alumina this year.
paw
88 ALUMINIUM · 6/2007