Tex reported that reflecting a depression of the world economy caused ...
Tex reported that reflecting a depression of the world economy caused by a crisis of the financing markets, plans to reduce production of ferroalloys and nickel are coming up to the surface in many of the world countries. These countries are Brazil, India, France, Norway, China, Indonesia, and so on and have aimed to take the countermeasures for a fall of prices and a rectification of oversupplies.
As already reported in last week, Privat was informed to reduce their production of manganese ferroalloys to a considerable extent and also Vale, a leading producer of ferroalloys in Brazil, has decided to cut back largely their production of manganese ferroalloys.
Furthermore, Visa Steel of India notified on October 30th 2008 the distributors concerned in raw materials of their decision to decrease their production of ferrochrome. The followings are the plans to reduce production of ferro-alloys and nickel, which are enlarging on the world wide scale.
Vale
According to the announcement made by Vale on October 31st 2008, it Vale will stop their production of manganese ore and manganese ferroalloys in Brazil for one month during December 2008 to January 2009. Vale will close the Dunkerque plant in France until April 2009 and suspend to produce manganese ferroalloys. Also, Vale will shut the Mo I Rana plant in Norway until June 2009 to repair one electric furnace. Consequently, Vale will decrease their production of manganese ferroalloys by 90,000 tonnes and that of manganese ore by 6000,000 tonnes respectively in comparison with those as planned previously for the first half of 2009. Vale said that a nickel refinery in Dalian of China will operate at 35% of its normal capacity of 60,000 tons per annum.
Visa Steel
Visa Steel notified on October 30th 2008 that the companies concerned in business with them of a temporary shutdown of the plant for production of ferrochrome, because of the fallen price of ferrochrome and the depressed demand for ferrochrome. Therefore, Visa Steel said that it has stopped any purchase of iron and chrome ores in order to keep financial health. The plant has capacity to produce 50,000 tonnes per annum of ferrochrome.
Cronimet
Cronimet announced on November 3rd 2008 that the maintenance work at the Armenian Zangezur Copper and Molybdenum Combine AG, which is an affiliated company of the Cronimet Group and produces copper and molybdenum, was originally planned for early 2009 but will be performed in an earlier time than that due to the current market situation. It is anticipated that the maintenance work will take four weeks. During this period, production will be reduced to the technological minimum. Whenever the market situation has been stabilized again, the production at ZCMC will be resumed immediately.
Norilsk Nickel
The world supply of nickel has become excessive and, in order to adjust this oversupply, nickel producers to be expensive for cost will have to reduce their nickel production but Norilsk Nickel, who is able to produce nickel on a lower cost, has no plan to decrease their nickel production, excluding the reduction in Western Australia. This Russian nickel producer has a view that the world supply of nickel in 2009 will still have a surplus.