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July 12 (Reuters) – Aluminium stocks held at three major Japanese ports came to 201,500 tonnes at the end of June, down 3,300 tonnes, or 1.6 percent, from a month earlier, trading house Marubeni Corp (8002.T) said on Monday.
Marubeni collects data from the key ports of Yokohama, Nagoya and Osaka. (Reporting by Chikako Mogi)
July 9 (Reuters) – Indonesia’s state enterprises minister Mustafa Abubakar said on Friday that state miner PT Aneka Tambang Tbk (ANTM.JK) is expected to acquire a 100 percent stake in aluminium firm PT Inalum, with talks ongoing.
Japanese investors hold a 58.8 percent stake in Inalum and the Indonesian state holds the rest. (Reporting by Fathiya Dahrul; Editing by Neil Chatterjee)
June 25 (Reuters) – U.S. aluminium giant Alcoa Inc (AA.N) said it ratified a new four-year contract with the United Steelworkers union covering 5,400 employees at ten of its locations in the United States.
The company, one of the world’s largest aluminum producers, said on its website there would be no wage increases in 2010 and 2011 but all job classes will see their wages go up by 2.5 percent each in 2012 and 2013.
Also, the company’s healthcare program will see increased employee contributions, with price tags increasing every year.
The union contract covers all Alcoa workers in the U.S. under an umbrella deal. (Reporting by Sakthi Prasad in Bangalore; Editing by Mike Nesbit)
MANAMA, June 20 (Reuters) – Bahrain’s sovereign wealth fund Mumtalakat Holding’s full-year net loss in 2009 more than doubled due to higher losses at its portfolio companies Gulf Air [GULF.UL] and Aluminium Bahrain [ALNUB.UL], a document showed.
Mumtalakat, which bundles Bahrain’s non-oil state-owned companies, said in an investor presentation reviewed by Reuters that its 2009 net loss was $487.2 million, compared with a loss of $184.3 million in 2008.
It said Gulf Air’s full-year loss rose 21 percent to $502.9 million last year, while Aluminium Bahrain (Alba), in which it owns a 77 percent stake, swung to a full-year net loss of $220.7 million, compared with a profit of $781.9 million in 2008.
Mumtalakat said in February it would transfer ownership of the loss-making carrier to the Bahraini government as it was not attractive enough as an investment, but in the presentation it said it owned 100 percent of the airline. [ID:nLDE6132TC]
The fund also said derivative losses of $170.6 million contributed to the rise in net losses.
Mumtalakat is currently on a fixed-income road-show. It said in the presentation it would use the proceeds to pay down some of its debt and for general corporate purposes.[ID:nLDE65F17C]
Emerging bond markets are improving and Gulf Arab issuers are eagerly waiting for global markets to be more favorable towards the region as the impact of debt restructuring in Dubai becomes more visible.
The emirate of Dubai has also held investor meetings this month and may launch an Islamic bond in the third quarter, bankers have said. [ID:nLDE65D0OG]
Mumtalakat’s road-show will end on Tuesday with investor meetings in Germany and Switzerland. Markets expect it to issue a benchmark-sized bond, according to IFR, a Thomson Reuters publication. Ratings agencies Fitch and Standard & Poor’s have assigned ‘A’ ratings to the expected issue. (Reporting by Frederik Richter; Editing by Dinesh Nair and Jon Loades-Carter)
Melbourne, May 6 (ANI): South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak has hinted that North Korea was involved in the sinking of the Cheonan on March 26, which cost 46 lives, and promised a “resolute” response.
Myung-Bak’s hint comes in the wake of investigators revealing the discovery of explosive traces on the funnel of the South Korean naval ship.
“It has been confirmed that the explosive came from a torpedo,” news.com.au quoted the team member, as saying.
Detailed analysis of salvaged aluminium fragments also confirmed they are from a torpedo, the individual said.
“This type of aluminium is not in use in this country. As long as the torpedo was not ours, there is only one country that may attack a South Korean navy vessel,” the team member reportedly said without naming North Korea. (ANI)
The Sunshine Coast Regional Council is stepping up work on a major sand replenishment program at Mooloolaba Beach.
Councillor Chris Thompson says a five-metre wall of sandbags has been built and a new set of aluminium steps will be installed in the next few days.
He says the sandbags will then be extended along a 300-metre stretch of the coastline and sand will be pumped back onto the beach.
“Probably over the next three to four months we hope to see a significant improvement in the beach there,” he said.
“Certainly by the end of this calendar year we will see a huge improvement in the amount of sand on the beach, barring there’s no further incidences of cyclones or anything like that.”
Cr Thompson says a major sand pumping and dredging operation will begin mid-year.
“We’ll be putting in the new aluminium steps and then removing the old wooden ones and then we will be continuing the sand bag wall around towards the eastern end, which is where the rock walls are,” he said.
“The next steps after that occur in June, July and August when we will have the dredging program kick off.”
London, March 31 (ANI): A team of scientists has theorized that a runaway star may have spawned our solar system.
Meteorites that contain bits of rock called calcium-aluminium-rich inclusions suggest that the solar system may have formed very quickly from the ashes of other stars.
That’s because the inclusions formed with the radioactive isotope aluminium-26, which is forged inside stars tens of times as massive as the sun and decays with a half-life of only 720,000 years.
Such massive stars tend to form in clusters, and they shed material in roiling winds that can cool down and seed planetary systems.
But, according to a report in New Scientist, Vincent Tatischeff of the National Center for Scientific Research in Orsay, France, and colleagues suspect a massive star cluster would have been have been so hot that most of the Al-26 would have decayed before planets could congeal.
Instead, they suggest the solar system sprang from a solitary star’s ashes, which could have cooled more quickly.
To account for the amount of Al-26 observed in meteorites, the star would still have had to be massive, meaning it probably formed in a clutch of other stars.
At some point, it may have been flung out of its birth cluster by gravitational tussles with its siblings or the explosion of a companion.
“The scenario may look complicated, but we think it is the most likely origin of the aluminium-26 in the solar system,” Tatischeff said.
As it zipped through interstellar space, the star would have released Al-26 in winds, forming a shell of material around it.
When the star later exploded, its remains would have slammed into this shell, creating a turbulent region with areas dense enough for the sun to form.
According to Tatischeff, most of the galaxy’s planetary systems may not have formed as quickly as ours, since many probably arose from clusters.
This makes them likely to have lower levels of Al-26, which generates heat as it decays.
The cooler temperatures may have led rocky planets to take a different evolutionary path to Earth, perhaps becoming ocean worlds. (ANI)
The Darwin steel company Transcon has gone into liquidation, leaving 30 workers out of a job.
Transcon made the announcement today ahead of a creditors’ meeting next week.
The company is yet to comment on why it went bust, but steel workers calling into the company office at Berrimah today say they have been aware for a few weeks that work in the company had been running out and it was struggling with cash flow.
Workers say the company had been hoping to win a steel construction contract with a Territory aluminium processor but that fell through.
London, Sep 5 (ANI): After almost 30 years of one of Britain’s best-known UFO sightings, the true story behind the event has emerged- a truck load of dung is what caused all the mayhem.
The weird lights, strange marks on the ground, and odd noises in the night were caused by a burning lorry-load of dung.
US Air Force personnel claimed a UFO had landed in Rendlesham Forest, near Woodbridge, Suffolk, and the lurid descriptions given by them fuelled decades of fevered speculation, books, and bizarre theories.
In fact, the area was even proclaimed to be a portal for aliens visiting Earth.
However, Peter Turtill, 66, from Ipswich, has now come forward and has claimed that it was him who was to blame for the whole havoc.
He said that he had been on his way home after collecting a truck he had lent to a friend when it broke down near the USAF airbase at Rendlesham in December 1980.
“To my horror it was loaded with stolen fertiliser (often made at the time from guano bird dung) so we set light to it to destroy the evidence,” The Daily Express quoted Turtill as saying.
“The truck had an aluminium body and the fertiliser and metal made some very unusual coloured flames.
“Some airmen thought it was a multi-coloured cross from outer space, and with the truck tyres popping they were getting a bit edgy.
“I admit it probably looked spectacular rolling through the forest but it was hardly a spaceship,” he added.
While Turtill’s account may not necessarily lay the UFO story to rest, Rendlesham UFO enthusiast Brenda Butler said: “I don’t get what he is saying. Why has he waited 29 years to come forward?” (ANI)
London, August 26 (ANI): In a new study, a team of scientists has described how aluminium radioisotopes can now offer precise timing of events 4.5 billion years ago, and thus have been dubbed as the ‘stopwatch for the solar system’.
According to a report by BBC News, the study shows that the rate of decay of isotopes can now be relied upon to give accurate measures of time for that period.
It is hoped that this will give new insights into how the Solar System formed in its first five million years.
The scientists showed how aluminium radioisotopes were uniformly distributed in the region where the Solar System was formed.
As the isotopes decayed steadily across the early Solar System, this allows their use as a type of clock for that period.
“We can now use the isotopes to measure the age of different chondrules, parts of meteorites, and understand far more about the early part of our Solar System,” one of the scientists, Johan Villeneuve, told BBC News.
The findings could also shed light on the origins of the planets.
Philip Bland, from Imperial College London, described the research as “a really nice study”.
“With their high precision measurements, they are able to date formation times for chondrules very precisely,” he said.
“And what is interesting is that they’ve shown that these building blocks for asteroids, and possibly for planets as well, formed over an extended period of two to three million years,” he added. (ANI)
New Delhi, Aug 24 (ANI): Former Defence Minister George Fernandes demanded an apology from the Congress Party, as his name was not figuring in the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) charge sheet in the coffin scam.
Congress, which was an opposition party in 2002, severely criticised Fernandes as having role in the Coffin Scam, and even boycotted him in the Parliament.
In a signed press statement Fernandes accused Congress for demoralising the troops to gain the political advantage.
“I needed no ‘clean chit’ from the CBI to know that the aluminium casket purchase issue had never even come to my table during my tenure as Defence Minister let alone my drinking the blood of martyrs, as the Congress accused me of doing,” Fernandes stated.
The CBI, which filed a charge sheet of the scam on August 19, did not include Fernandes’s name.
The charge sheet named the then military attachi in the Indian Embassy in the US, Major General (Retd) Arun Roy, Col (Retd) S K Malik, Col S D Singh and US based businessman Victor Baiza.
The NDA Government’s decision to purchase steel body bays to bring back the bodies if the martyrs of Kargil conflict had racked the nation during the summer of 1999.
The Comptroller and auditor General also found a lot of flaws in the procurement of caskets.
The UPA government, which assumed power in 2004, ordered probe against all the deals signed during the NDA regime. (ANI)
London, Jul 10 (ANI): Aussie model Elle Macpherson has been pictured posing next to the new Jaguar XJ that was launched recently.
The company’s first new model for seven years was launched at the Saatchi Gallery in London.
The car, whose price starts at 52,500 pounds, is made of aluminium, making it far greener than previous steel models.
“The aluminium is recyclable,” the Daily Express quoted new Indian owners Tata as saying.
US talk-show host Jay Leno hosted the event, which was also attended by Baywatch actor David Hasselhoff, newsreader Sir Trevor McDonald, and Spandau Ballet singer Tony Hadley. (ANI)
London, July 5 (ANI): A man who lost his eyesight in an accident at work can now see again, thanks to doctors who transplanted his tooth in his eye.
Martin Jones, 42, a builder, had been blind for 12 years after a tub of white-hot aluminium exploded in his face while working at a scrapyard.
He got married to Gill, 50, four years ago but had not seen her until he underwent the delicate eight-hour operation.
For the rare procedure, Jones’ front tooth was removed, and used as a lens holder in his right eye.
“I met my wife when I was blind and when I found out there was a chance I would get my sight back the first person I wanted to see was her,” the Telegraph quoted Jones, from Broom, Rotherham, as saying.
He added: “The doctors took the bandages off and it was like looking through water and then I saw this figure and it was her. She’s wonderful and lovely. It was unbelievable to see her for the first time.” (ANI)
London, Jul 1 (ANI): American artist Jeff Koons will be holding a major solo show featuring work from his Popeye series in London.
The work will go on public display at the Serpentine Gallery from July 2, and the focus will be on his paintings of iconic cartoon character Popeye, as well as inflatable beach and bath toys, including a giant lobster.
The Serpentine Gallery said that it was the first major exhibition of the artist’s work in a public gallery in England. oons said that he wanted visitors to engage with the works, and feel that “their history, their culture is perfect”.
Popeye and Olive Oyl are central to the series, with many of the pieces on loan from both public and private collections.
The exhibition also includes dolphins, a paddling pool, monkeys and lobsters, which at first glance, look like inflatable toys, but the objects are cast in aluminium and their surfaces are painted.
“Working with everyday objects, it’s about people and the acceptance of others,” the BBC quoted Koons as saying.
“I watched Popeye when I was younger… I always see a little bit of my father in Popeye,” he said.
Koons began his Popeye series in 2002, and compares his “inflatables” to life.
“In our own life we’re inflatable. We exhale and it’s a simple death,” he said.
“They’re (the artworks) in a state of being optimistic. Maybe art is the spinach,” he added. (ANI)
Washington, June 30(ANI): A new type of body armour made from cement is being developed by engineers at the University of Leeds.
The boffins are combining super-strong cement with recycled carbon fibre materials to make a material tough enough to withstand most types of bullets.
Dr Philip Purnell, who is leading the team at the School of Civil Engineering in the University, said: “By using cement instead of alumina we are confident we can deliver a cost-effective level of protection for many people at risk. It should be good enough for people like security guards, reporters and aid workers who are worried about the odd pot shot being taken at them.
“The fact is many of the armoured vests sold today are over-engineered for the threats they face. Cement based body armour would not only create a whole new market but it would also take some of the pressure off the demand for hi-spec alumina models so that people like soldiers, who really need this kit, can get it.”
Till date, hi-spec body armour is constructed with alumina plates the raw material used to make aluminium – which is heated to 1600 degrees Celsius for up to two weeks in a process called ‘sintering’ making them ultra hard.
Enhanced combat body armour (ECBA) as supplied to UK troops uses sintered alumina plates.
However, in the past UK and US soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan have faced shortages of ECBA as production has struggled to keep up with soaring global demand.
Leeds engineers call the project ‘Cementing the future’ and also suggest putting the material to use in pump-less fridges, a new type of catalytic converter, and improved bone replacements. (ANI)
DUBLIN–(Business Wire)–
Research and Markets
(http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/b0c6d9/global_top_500_rep) has
announced the addition of the “Global Top 500 Report of Mining and Metal,
2008-2009″ report to their offering.
This top 500 report is based over 1,000 mining companies (excluding coal,
petroleum and natural gas) and metal companies (excluding metalworks) are listed
over 50 stock exchanges in the world, by downloading their latest annual reports
and financial reports, and according to the indices such as the turnover, net
profit and total assets.
With the increasingly processing of industrialization and urbanization, China’s
demand for mineral resource remained strong. China has accelerated its move of
oversea acquisitions and enhanced its mineral resource reserves since 2009. For
example, Aluminium Corporation of China Limited plans to invest CNY19.5 billion
over Rio Tinto, the tender offer from China Minmetals Corp over Oz Minerals with
a sum of US $1.7 billion, and the Loan-for-Oil agreements with Brazil and
Russia.
In addition, the large steel corporations like Wisco, Nonfemet, Angang, and
Shougang have also accelerated their move of oversea mineral resource
acquisition. The iron ore producer of NMDC and the zinc producer of BINANI from
India are also planning their oversea acquisitions.
This report firstly gives the full picture of the turnover, net profit and total
assets, of global top 500 mining and metal companies in FY 2007, considering
some companies have not issued their FY 2008 annual reports yet, the 2008 data
will be released in a few months.
Followed by the description of mining industry and investment in different
continents, and recommend 23 countries rich in mineral resources, and deserving
to invest.
Then the profile of global top 500 including the company name, website, stock
code, main business, revenue and profit in past five years.
Finally, the series gives an in-depth analysis of global top 120 including their
financial results, operations and products besides company profile.
Notes:
1 The rank was by turnover in FY2007.
2 All the local currencies are converted into US dollar according to the
exchange rate in Jan, 2008.
Key Topics Covered:
1 Global Top 500 Mining and Metal Companies
2 Australia
3 Asia
4 Europe
5 Africa
6 America
7 Overview of Global Top 500 Mining and Metal Companies
8 Analysis of Global Top 120 Mining and Metal Companies
For more information visit
http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/b0c6d9/global_top_500_rep
Research and Markets
Laura Wood
Senior Manager
press@researchandmarkets.com
Fax from USA: 646-607-1907
Fax from rest of the world: +353-1-481-1716
Copyright Business Wire 2009
London, April 24 (ANI): An ice collapse near the base of Mount Everest has blocked the route of scores of climbers hoping to scale the world’s highest peak.
According to a report in The Daily Telegraph, no one was reported injured in the ice collapse, but the route has been blocked for a few days, Ang Tshering of the Nepal Mountaineering Association, told The Daily Telegraph.
The section of the route called the Khumbu Icefall just above the base camp is one of the riskiest areas on the way to Everest’s summit.
The ice collapse destroyed the path set by climbers and their Sherpa guides using aluminium ladders and ropes to move over the crevasses and shaky ice chunks.
Tshering said that it was lucky that no one was hurt since hundreds of climbers and their porters pass through the route at this time of year carrying equipment and supplies from the base camp to camps set up along the side of the mountain.
The spring climbing season is the most popular time to scale mountains in Nepal.
Weather conditions generally remain calm for several days in May, giving climbers a window to hastily make their way to the summits and then retreat to safer altitudes.
A total of 65 teams have been given permission by Nepal’s government to climb various mountains during the season.
Of them, 25 teams are attempting Mount Everest, the world’s highest peak at 29,035 feet (8,850 meters). (ANI)
Washington, Apr 20 (ANI): Russell Crowe is fighting to stop Australian officials from strip mining in late pal Steve Irwin’s wildlife reserve in Queensland.
After the death of the ‘Crocodile Hunter’ 2006, politicians donated over 130,000 hectares of wilderness to conservationists as a tribute.
However, the new Aussie government is planning to permit a local aluminium company for mining a portion of the Steve Irwin Wildlife Reserve.
Thus, Crowe is leaving no stone unturned to make officials change their decision.
“That site actually operates as a water filter and there are some species of plants and animals that don’t really appear in other places, and the river the water runs into, the Wenlock River, has the largest bio-diversity range of any freshwater river in the country – it has things like saw-toothed sharks and estuarine crocodiles,” Contactmusic quoted Crowe as saying.
He added: “He’s (Irwin) not here to stand up for himself and I just feel, as his friend, that we can’t do that… I made an offer to the environmental minister to have a talk about it but he hasn’t bothered to respond.”
Crowe is appearing on chat shows to promote new film ‘State of Play’, and is also urging his and Irwin’s fans to sign an online petition on the Australia Zoo’s website.
Appearing on The Late Show with David Letterman in America on April 17, Crowe rallied support, saying, “If any of you were ever touched by Steve’s attitude towards conservation… and making conservation an important subject for us to discuss… go to that website and sign up on that petition because that man deserves to be honoured and respected, whether he’s alive or not. He was a fantastic person.”
The actor has claimed that the ‘Save Steve’s Place’ petition already boasts 118,000 signatures. (ANI)
London, April 18 (ANI): Scientists are working on ways to build a gossamer-thin space sail or “aerobrake” that would help bring back a used rocket back to Earth safely.
According to a report in New Scientist, space-flight engineers Max Cerf and Brice Santerre at the European aerospace firm EADS Astrium have put the idea forward.
Rocket stages are a particular risk to spacecraft because they often contain large amounts of unused fuel, which can explode when sunlight heats the tank. Leaking fuel can also act like a mini-thruster, pushing the rocket into an orbit where it may cause a collision.
One way to tackle the problem is to vent unused fuel in a controlled way, and drain power from the battery, but this is unlikely to eliminate all collisions.
Now, Cerf and Santerre are devising ways to build a sail that would quickly remove a spent rocket from orbit.
The sail or “aerobrake” would be deployed after a rocket has delivered its satellite into low-Earth orbit, slowing it down by friction with the thin atmosphere so that burns up in around 25 years, much earlier than conventional rocket stages, some of which are expected to survive for at least 100 years.
The aerobrake would be deployed after the rocket has delivered its satellite into low-Earth orbit.
For the final stage of an Ariane 5 launcher, the conical sail would need to have an area of about 350 square metres and be supported by an inflatable mast 12 meters long.
Cerf and Santerre propose a number of possible ways to build the mast.
The simplest envisages a woven polymer and aluminium tube that is kept inflated by nitrogen gas.
Another uses a tube made of polymer composite, which after being inflated with nitrogen is set hard by the sun’s ultraviolet rays. A third design uses epoxy resin that is set hard by solvent evaporation.
The pair revealed their designs at this month’s Fifth European Conference on Space Debris in Darmstadt, Germany, organised by the European Space Agency.
According to Peter Roberts, a space-flight engineer at Cranfield University in the UK, who is working on similar technology for small satellites, “It’s a good idea, says Peter Roberts, a space-flight engineer at Cranfield University in the UK.”
“The risk of fragmentation of end-of-life spacecraft due to impacts from other debris can be greatly reduced by deploying a drag sail,” he said. (ANI)
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Conservatory Land Makes Bi-Fold Doors in Conservatories a Success
MANSFIELD, UNITED KINGDOM, Apr 08 (MARKET WIRE) —
Bi-fold doors, also known as folding or concertina doors, provide
complete open access up to six metres wide and started becoming more
popular in 2008 when many consumers were installing them in their homes.
Later that year, DIY conservatory retailer ConservatoryLand, commenced
manufacture and introduced to their customers the option of upgrading
their DIY conservatories with bi-fold doors to open up their house to
their conservatory or their conservatory to their garden.
The company marketed their new product by installing bi-fold doors in
their Mansfield showroom, adding them to their website and sending out
fliers with their brochures. Since then, sales of bi-fold doors in their
conservatories have rapidly increased with one in ten customers now
requesting them.
When installed in a brick built property, the doors can be manufactured
up to six metres wide and up to four metres wide when installed in
conservatories. This is achieved with the company’s new bi-fold door
aluminium bolster system to provide the required support.
David Bingham, Director of the company comments “We are delighted with
response to our marketing campaign and started receiving orders within
days of introduction. Our bi-fold doors are a lovely product which
provide a huge opening to the home or conservatory compared to that of
traditional patio or French doors.”
Traditionally, bi-fold doors have been manufactured from timber or
aluminium and have been common place in continental countries for many
years, particularly in commercial public premises such as bars and
restaurants.
David Bingham continues “With more consumers looking for different ways
of enhancing their homes and with new technology now available to
manufacture bi-fold doors in maintenance free PVCu, popularity in the UK
residential market continues to increase and is expected to do so over
the coming years.
For more information about the Conservatory Land range of bi-fold doors
for conservatories, contact:
David Bingham
ConservatoryLand
Old Mill Park
Mansfield Woodhouse
Nottinghamshire
NG19 9BG
Telephone: 01623 488 887
Fax: 0870 123 1670
Contacts:
ConservatoryLand
David Bingham
01623 488 887
0870 123 1670 (FAX)
Copyright 2010, Market Wire, All rights reserved.