MetalMiner

US Stimulus Package and its Potential Impact on Metals Markets

admin — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 17:00:52 +0000

Now that the pies, cakes and goodies are well gone and new year’s resolutions come to the fore, I relish the couple of weeks off I just had to re-group and re-think how global sourcing and trading professionals might want to look at metals markets for 2009. When I think about 2008, a few words come to mind: frenzied, extraordinary and unpredictable. It was a roller coaster of a year. And though price trends are something we constantly blog about (and will be formally posting as predictions for 2009), I can’t help but take a few minutes to ponder what’s next. And whether you are sipping a cafe au lait from a cafe in Paris or an amber local brew at an English pub, no matter where you go, people are talking about the economy. (more…)

David Byrne’s Pedal to the Metal

admin — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 14:00:01 +0000

Musician David Byrne added bike racks to his diverse portfolio of “Byrnian” creations. With New York City as his canvas, he designed and had fabricated nine unique bike racks installed in various locations throughout Manhattan and Brooklyn. Each bike rack is site specific such as a stilleto-shaped bike rack for The Ladies’ Mile (West side of Fifth Avenue, north of 57th Street in front of Bergdorf’s) and a dollar sign bike rack for Wall Street (North side of 82 Wall Street, west of Water Street).

Metal pieces were welded together and the edges ground to achieve each distinct shape. Not wanting the bike racks to be only viewed, Byrne “wants them to be lashed with heavy chains, banged with Kryptonites and scratched by gears. He wants them to be used.” Form is function in this case, and one whose use, however rough, makes good use (pun intended) of metal.

Installed last August, the bike racks will remain for public viewing and usage for 364 days.

On a related story, Bryne was also a judge for the CityRacks Design Competition. The winning submission was designed by Ian Mahaffy and Maarten De Greeve (Bettlelab) from Copenhagen, Denmark. Their solution for bicycle parking “is round with a horizontal crossbar, evoking an abstracted bicycle tire. Constructed of cast-metal, the design is elegant yet sturdy enough to withstand the harshest street environments.”

– Nate Burgos

Michigan’s U.P. Gears for Mining Rush

admin — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 11:00:28 +0000

Residents in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula have mixed reactions to the possible “mining boom” that the area could soon face. Although some mining supporters look forward to the economic boost, others worry that the mining the landscape could hurt other industries, particularly tourism. “Who’s going to want to come to a mining district to ski or hike or backpack or snowmobile?” one anti-mining group noted. Despite aesthetic and environmental concerns, many residents look forward to mining the remaining zinc, gold, silver and copper that was recently discovered in the U.P.

After hosting a booming industry for more than a century, mining activity in the U.P. slowed in the recent past. Now, the U.P. contains only two Cliffs Natural Resources iron ore mines, located near Marquette. But things could soon look up for miners in the area, since new resources have been discovered in natural formations. The Chicago Tribune recently reported that mining companies are surveying and exploring at least 14 areas for future mines in the U.P.

“There is definitely a potential for resurgence in mining in the U.P., but to what degree I don’t know,” Jon Cherry, a project manager for Kennecott Minerals Co., told the Chicago Tribune. Cherry’s company currently has a nickel and copper mine planned in Marquette County, and he adds, “The low-hanging fruit, the easily identifiable and developed ore bodies are gone. It’s harder and more expensive to develop what remains.”

Although metals markets are known for volatility, Cherry has an optimistic outlook for the future markets in the U.P. and the future of the area’s mining operations: “We take the long-term view that society will continue to need metals, regardless of the temporary ups and downs of the market.”

–Amy Edwards

Happy New Year!

admin — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 11:00:02 +0000

Happy New Year to everyone! We’ll return with our full slate of editorial commetary on global metals markets on Monday

–Lisa Reisman & Stuart Burns

The Presidential Inaugural Committee Requests the Honor of Your Presence… by Way of Copper and Steel

admin — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 16:00:58 +0000

Reported in the New York Times, New York-based printing firm Precise Continental was awarded to make the million invitations for the inauguration of President-elect Barack Obama. Engraving was the type of printing by which the invitation’s design was incised into the surface of a hard plate, traditionally copper, by a hardened steel chisel called a burin. To make a print, the engraved plate was then fully covered with ink which was afterwards wiped off the surface, leaving only ink in the engraved lines. Sheets of paper picked up the ink within the engraved lines, resulting in a printed design. As you can tell, engraving takes steady hands. Engraver Augusto Lovato is Precise Continental’s “steady-handed man,” with a magnifying glass, scrutinized the copper plate and “expertly cleaned the serifs and curls” of the invites’s lettering. Each sheet of paper was individually fed with clean hands during the printmaking process. With metal playing a key supporting part from the start, the inaugural ceremony’s invites were handled with both precision and care.

–Nate Burgos

“Metals Mistakes” and Obama’s New Science Advisor

admin — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 11:00:22 +0000

Barack Obama’s new science advisor should take a break from gambling — because past bets already proved that he’s “spectacularly wrong” about issues in his field, according to New York Times blogger John Tierney. A recent post on TierneyLab Blog blasts John P. Holdren, the freshly-announced science advisor, expressing concern over his infamous bet against a well-known economist during the “energy crisis” in the 1980s.

To quote Tierney:

[The economist] Dr. [Julian] Simon, who disagreed with environmentalists’ predictions of a new “age of scarcity” of natural resources, offered to bet that any natural resource would be cheaper at any date in the future. Dr. Ehrlich accepted the challenge and asked Dr. Holdren, then the co-director of the graduate program in energy and resources at the University of California, Berkeley, and another Berkeley professor, John Harte, for help in choosing which resources would become scarce.

In 1980 Dr. Holdren helped select five metals — chrome, copper, nickel, tin and tungsten — and joined Dr. Ehrlich and Dr. Harte in betting $1,000 that those metals would be more expensive ten years later. They turned out to be wrong on all five metals, and had to pay up when the bet came due in 1990. (more…)

714 Metal Orbs + Vision = Moving Experience of Art

admin — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 16:00:09 +0000

Media design and development firm ART+COM created a high-tech installation for the BMW Museum which opened in June 2008 in Munich, Germany. Involving mechatronics, the precisely moving sculpture is a “metaphorical representation” of the the automotive design process from concept to final form. From the artwork’s details: “714 metal spheres, individually controllable with millimetre accuracy; cable winches with individual high-precision motors for each sphere; software for defining animation paths and controlling motion.” The result looks and feels effortless but utilized a lot of disciplines: media design and technology planning, software development, protoyping and construction, site and project management.

View high-res images of the Kinetic Sculpture, BMW Museum.

– Nate Burgos

China’s Latest Affect on the Aluminum Market

admin — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 11:00:24 +0000

China might hold a large slice of the world’s aluminum pie, serving as the metal’s largest producer and consumer on the international market, but China’s control is starting to hurt the market. Recent troubles in the worldwide economy have plagued aluminum more than any other metal, and a recent aluminum “stimulus package” in China won’t help the market as much as planned.

To fight the current fire in the nonferrous metals industry, China’s State Reserve Bureau plans to purchase 290,000 metric tons of aluminum bought at 10-percent premium prices from Chinese smelters. The announcement first created three-week highs, which Stuart reported when Shanghai futures rose .5 percent, but the industry finally dropped out when futures fell last week. (more…)

Metal Price Predictions: Year in Review

admin — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 16:00:58 +0000

As 2008 comes to a close, and we begin the arduous process of predicting price levels for a range of industrial metals for 2009, we thought it would be a good time to see how we did for 2008. Did MetalMiner call the price of steel, copper and zinc correctly?

Check out our 2008 price predictions here:

Hear what Lisa and Stuart have to say about 2008:

–Lisa Reisman & Stuart Burns

Our Mine, Our Town

admin — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 14:00:26 +0000

“I would have to say most of us say it sucks—just plain and simple, it sucks. It’s something that we were looking forward to. It was going to bring in additional income, people in town were getting excited, and then it gets pulled out from under us.” This was the firm conclusion of Rochelle Basher, who manages the Delaware Hotel in Leadville, Colorado. It is a sentiment shared by the 2,800-plus residents of a town that was founded in the late 1800s and became a large and leading silver provider until an abrupt decline during the 1890s. Soon after that time, mining diversified, producing gold, lead, zinc and copper. (more…)