Photo Credit: University of Michigan News Services.
After covering 4,000 cross-country kilometers in a 10-day competition, an elite group of solar-powered cars are finally getting their day in the shade. The 2008 North American Solar Challenge, an event where college students design, build and race cars powered by the sun, ended last week after the cars […]

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An interesting article in the Telegraph  newspaper, a venerable and widely respected “broadsheet” publication as the Brits call the very few newspapers still worth reading in the UK, covered commodities prices and examined the idea that they are a bubble ready to burst.
Geroge Soros giving evidence to the US Congress also affirmed that speculation was […]

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I really enjoy when our HVAC repair guy comes to pay a visit (not because I enjoy sweltering in 90 degree heat mind you when the AC isn’t working) but when you talk to someone in the trades who really knows their business and who happens to recognize some interesting trends. My first question, “have […]

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To fight against rising consumer prices, investors have increased their holdings in the commodities markets; hence, the Reuters/Jeffries CRB Index, which includes 19 raw materials, has witnessed a 15 percent rise since the beginning of the year. As the dollar continues to weaken and energy prices rise, copper futures fluctuate in this volatile economy. This […]

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Last week Crain’s Chicago had a story on the sale of a local titanium powder company, International Titanium Powder LLC (ITP) to a Maryland based firm, Cristal U.S. Inc (owned by Cristal Global, a Saudi company). It wasn’t a typical M&A story of so and so bought such and such. The article stated that the […]

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Outside of the industry it is often assumed that most titanium bearing ores such as ilmenite and rutile are turned into titanium metal (for well known applications in aerospace and medical implants due to its high strength and low weight). In fact 95% of titanium is used as the oxide in pigments for paints, plastics and […]

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It’s Titanium Tuesday here at MetalMiner. We’ll cover three topics on the sector, beginning with a general look at the titanium producer segment and pricing. A second piece will cover product innovations to reduce metal costs, and afterwards, you can read a third piece on the controversial acquisition of a US titanium producer. According to this article, […]

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I was intrigued reading a Reuters report on Mineweb covering the projected rise in platinum prices to find out to what extent palladium was driven by the same fundamentals. The report forecast rising palladium prices next year due to the (as with platinum) power shortages in South Africa and the reduced sales from dwindling Russian reserves. […]

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As any steel buyer can tell you, the direction of the market has gone only one way, up. Nickel is down significantly this year and lead and zinc have also headed south. But what to make of these “sideways” markets in aluminum and copper for example? First, what is a sideways market? I like this […]

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US manufacturing is doing badly when you look at automotive and construction. One would expect the spill-over into other sectors to have had a severely negative impact. But, after a few months of dire warnings of recession, the Chicago PMI Index popped back up above 50 supporting a widespread belief that US manufacturing is continuing to […]

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