查看更多>>摘要：Readers of this report will appreciate that we were on target in our predictions of last week gold and silver price movements.While silver exceeded expectations of the market gold staged a smart comeback and is now ready to take on key 302dollar/oz resistance. However, with UK gold auction and Come Option Expiry around the corner, we can look forward to some action this week.
查看更多>>摘要：Base metals remained mostly quiet Friday morning with players anticipating that an entry of speculative funds in the afternoon will bring a fresh burst of buying on the back of bullish chart patterns and a desire to continue the recent upside momentum. Prices were confined to light trade around levels in copper and aluminum out of reach. Dealers said that, even if speculative buying is aggressive, little trade or to move significantly higher as a result. The release of US January personal income and spending figures on Friday, which is widely expected to be rather flat, is being watched by market players for indications of am economic recovery and could encourage increased buying if it is positively received.
查看更多>>摘要：Import duty has been lowered on copper, zinc and lead from 35 percent to 25 percent, which should lead to a fall in domestic prices. The peak rate of duty has been lowered from 35 percent to 30 percent and therefore the value added products of these metals particularly copper will carry a duty level of 30 percent leaving a 5 percent margin for the value adding activities.While welcoming the duty reduction on copper virgin metal, the processors are not likely to be enthused over the budget proposals as they wanted a duty differential of at least 10 percent between raw material, semis and finished products. They had asked for three tiered duties which the FM has not conceded, which in course of time will open the field for imports and ultimately hit the downstream processors.
查看更多>>摘要：U.S. producer Kaiser Aluminum is to leave its idled smelters in the U.S. Pacific Northwest offline while the company is in Chapter 11 and has waived its "take or pay" contract with local power authority Bonneville Power Administration until Sept. 30, a company spokesman said. 'The Chapter 11 filing has no impact on the status of Mead and Tacoma. They remain curtailed," he said. "Any decision about potential restart will continue to be based largely on market conditions, specifically the combination of metal price and power price," he continued, adding: "We have a waiver of the 'take of pay' provision of our BPA contract through Sept. 30 of this year. "Prior to this, the end of March was to be the next available time the company would have been able to consider restarting production since output was taken off due to higher power and weak aluminum prices in the region. Under the terms of a take or pay deal, smelters can opt to either use the power contracted to them by the BPA to restart capacity, or allow the BPA to sell the power back to the spot market and pay for the difference between the contract price and the spot price achieved.
查看更多>>摘要：Malaysia's MASCO Aluminum Bhd. Is seeking a new power supplier for its planned aluminum project in the Perak State of Malaysia, the company's Chairman E.W.C. Wong said. The search for a new power supplier came after state-owned Tenaga Nasional Bhd. Proposed hiking power charges to 4.4 U.S. cents a kilowatt-hour for MASCO,K up from 2.2 cents/kwh originally. Since 1999, Wong has tried to push for an aluminum production complex with a capacity of 500,000 metric tons a year in Perak. The project, which will include a dedicated power plant, is valued at US dollar 1.9 billion. "Wong said, estimating production costs would rise to USdollar 1,400/ton at that rate. At a power charge of 2.2 cents/kWh, Wong said production costs are estimated around USdollar 1,100/ton.
查看更多>>摘要：South Korea's Pohang Iron and Steel Co. (Posco), the world's largest crude steel maker, will increase its nickel usage this year to 65,000 metric tons and reduce its steel scrap usage due to higher scrap prices,a Posco spokesman said. Posco is South Korea's largest nickel consumer. Last year, Posco used 60,000 tons of nickel and 460,000 tons of scrap. It plans to reduce the scrap amount to 400,000 tons this year, the spokesman said."(Scrap steel) supply is getting tighter and prices are going up," the spokesman said.
查看更多>>摘要：Chile's copper production totaled 377,000 metric tons in January, down 1.5 percent from the same month a year ago, the National Institute of Statistics (INE) said. Production decreased in January because some of the country's copper mines, particularly Dona Ines de Collahuasi, Los Pelambres, Disputada de Las Condes,Quebrada Blanca, and Escondida saw production fall during the month, INE said. Those operations account for 40 percent of national copper output. The authority didn't explain why production at the mines decreased. BHP Billton announced in early November plans to temporarily trim output at Escondida, the country's largest copper mine, by 80,000 tons a year. Escondida's output was already declining due to falling ore grades at the mine. INE said Chile's total copper production consisted of 163,566 metric tons of copper concentrates and 208,340 metric tons of electrolytes in January. INE didn't provide comparative details on either concentrate or electrolyte production, or information on the other 5,094 metric tons of output in.
查看更多>>摘要：China's 2002 consumption of nickel metal is likely to stay unchanged from around 70,000 metric tons last year, in line with unchanged stainless steel production anticipated this year, a senior official of Jinchuan Nonferrous Metals Co. Ltd. said Nickel is mainly used in stainless steel production. Jinchuna is the only nickel metal producer in China, with a production capacity of 60,000 tons a year. The company sells output in includes real demand plus imports, stood.Around 83,000 tons in 2002, the official said. This year, Jinchuan plans to produce 52,000 to 53,000 tons of nickel metal, up slightly from 48,000 tons last year, the official said. The planned increase comes after the company completed lifting its capacity to 60,000 tons/year in the fourth quarter last year, form 50,000.
查看更多>>摘要：Robust consumer demand has seen Russian domestic zinc consumption increase by about 10-15,000 metric tons a year, and in 2002 demand is expected to outstrip domestic supply for the first time in around 10 year, General Director of the Chelyabinsk Zinc Plant Vsevolod Geikhman said. Geikhman said the Chelyabinsk plant increased its 2001 zinc output by 6.73 percent to 155,500 tons on the year and was planning to produce 160,000 tons this year. Also this year the plant will complete the construction of new automated zinc electrolysis facility, which would enable it to increase output in 2003 to 180-200,000 tons a year. In Russia, apart from Chelyabinsk, zinc is produced by the Elektrozinc plant in Vladikavkaz to the tune of 90-100,000 tons a year, and by the small Belovsky zinc plant in the Kemerovo region, which only manages 2-5,000 tons a year. Elektrozinc produces all its zinc under to lling contracts for export leaving Chelyabinsk as the only major supplier to the domestic market. Geikhman said the largest zinc consumers in Russia were steel plants Severstal, Novolipetsk and Magnitogorsk, which use zinc for coating. Among other major zinc consumers are Agrisovgas in the Kaluga region, Domodedovo Metal Constructions Plant near Moscow, Cherepovetsk Steel Rolling Plant and the Chelyabinsk Steel Pipe Plant. All are currently dramatically increasing their zinc requirements. Geikhman also said plants producing alloys for the fast growing Russian.
查看更多>>摘要：Low zinc prices marred Thailand's Padaeng Industry, although the company increased its sales last year. Excellent performance of its die-cast alloys and continuous galvanizing grade alloys, helped Padaeng sell 105,696 tons of zinc metal in 2002, up 5 percent from the year before. Sale of die-cast alloys and continuous galvanizing grade alloys rose 30 percent on the previous tweleve months. Despite increasing its sales in tonnage terms though, Padaeng's revenues in 2001 revenues totaled 5.2bn bath (dollar 118.5,), a decline of 3.64 percent on the previous year. The company's net profit fell 42.69 percent to 185.5m bath (dollar 4.2m), form 323.66m bath in 2000. Low LME zinc prices Padaeng were cited as the main factor for lower revenues by Padaeng. LME zinc prices fell to 15-year low average price of dollar886 per tonne, a decrease of 21 percent over the previous year.
NSTL