Aluminum

London-based Vedanta Group (LON:VED) announced Saturday a merger of two of its subsidiaries, Sesa Goa and Sterlite Industries, into a new corporate entity to be named Sesa Sterlite.

Unionists from around the world will gather in the Canadian city of Alma, Quebec, from March 30 to April 1, to express their support for locked-out Rio Tinto Alcan workers who are fighting to preserve decent jobs, said international unions representatives on Wednesday.

Excess capacity in aluminium smelting will drag on for years to come, even while losses weigh on producers, as political pressures in China and Russia to keep jobs and push self-sufficiency prevent or delay plant closures.

Rio Tinto Alcan will begin an orderly shutdown of approximately one-third of its production at its 438,000 tonne Alma smelter in Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean, Quebec after initiating a lockout at the facility earlier today.

Reuters reported that Mr Vladimir Putin PM of Russia facing a wave of voter outrage as he prepares a bid to return to the Kremlin intervened to prevent an archaic 67 year old aluminum smelter with 3,500 workers from closure. Mr Putin was informed at a...

Finance News Network reports BHP Billiton's CEO Marius Kloppers says the miner will likely stop investing in its "tough" aluminium and nickel divisions and run them as "lean and mean as possible". The comments are fuelling speculation that BHP will lob off the two divisions and come just one week after the company said it would decide by January next year whether to get out of the diamond business altogether.

Norsk Hydro, one of the world's top aluminum producers, sees growth in global aluminum demand weakening in 2012 as a result of economic turbulence that is creating a weak market and pushing many industry players into the red. In a press release, Hydro's President and CEO Svein Richard Brandtzæg showed confidence in the market and he company, despite the fact Hydro's stocks dropped 2.9 percent after the prediction.

Rio Tinto has given the green light to an additional US$2.7 billion capital investment to modernize its aluminium smelter in Kitimat, British Columbia. This new investment will allow for completion of the US$3.3 billion project in 2014.

North American stock exchanges are on a tear today after central banks made more funds available to lenders, giving investors hope for a way out of the European debt debacle. The markets were also cheered by better than expected private sector job growth in the United States. The mining-heavy S&P/TSX Composite was up 2.5% to just over 12,000 at time of writing. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 384 points, or 3.3%, the most on a closing basis since Aug. 11, according to Bloomberg. Spot gold was up $32 from yesterday to $1747 which is just above the 20-day moving average of $1744, noted Kitco. Silver was up marginally to $32.86 from yesterday's $31.92, while benchmark copper was up more than 5% to a two-week high of $7,885/tonne. Zinc, lead, aluminum and nickel were also up from Tuesday.