Aluminium Update China’s expansion plan creates downward pressure on aluminium price

Market developments Tumbling stock mar-kets, weak global and US economic outlook, and de-pressed consumer confidence are negative factors to the slow recovery in aluminium demand as world inventories rise. The perceived opportunities flowing from the 2000-01 power crisis in the US and Latin America did not materialise. Strong aluminium out-put from China and other announced po-tential expansion plans has created downward pressure on the price of alu-minium. There has been a vast rise in LME inventory, much of which is believed to have come from China and has topped 1.3 million tons in mid-August.

Demand Global consumption fell by 4% in 2001, China is the excep-tion, demand for alu-minium in building and construction is forecast to grow at 15% per year. Even including China, global consumption may only return to levels seen in 2000 for this year. Poor de-mand from the Japa-nese and European construction sectors and worldwide auto-motrive industries were recorded. Supply The top 10 primary producers account for just under half of total world output. Alcoa and RusAl con-tributed 13% and 9% respectively. Pro-jected expansions could add an addi-tional 10% to global capacity by 2005,

with China taking the lead. Technicals The price of alumin-ium is in vulnerable territory as repeated rally attempts have failed to establish a new base above ei-ther physical or mov-ing average support. Significant downward pressures were de-tected recently. On a 3 month view, the profile for alumin-ium remains weak and one of consoli-dation below US$1,320.00 within the prevailing down-trend. Intermediate support at US$1,300.00 is vulner-able and risk a po-tentially rapid slide from US$1,280.00 to challenge pivotal support afforded by the November 2001 low at US$1,259.00.

Volume 7

Newsletter Date: 18th Aug 2002

Kam Kiu Newsletter 金橋鋁業 Kam Kiu Aluminium Group

Period Africa North Amer-ica

South Amer-ica

Asia West Europe

East Europe

Oceania World Total World Daily Average

Year 2000 1,178 6,041 2,167 2,221 3,801 3,689 2,094 21,191 57.9

Year 2001 1,369 5,222 1,991 2,234 3,885 3,728 2,122 20,551 56.3

Jan–Jun 01 680 2,629 1,059 1,099 1,921 1,839 1,053 10,280 56.8

Jan-Jun 02 669 2,631 1,094 1,123 1,948 1,882 1,064 10,411 57.5

Production (IAI figures) (In thousands of metric tons)

Volume 7

Powder coat-ing is a dry finish-ing process. Finely ground particles of pigment and resin are electrostatically charged and sprayed onto the products to be coated. The parts

to be coated are electrically grounded, so that the charged parti-cles adhere to them until melted and fused into solid coating in a curing

oven.

Powder coating is:

• an extremely attractive, du-rable, scratch resisitant, chemical resisitant, and UV resisitant coating.

• Environmentally friendly,

• With superior edge cover-age,

• Color consistent,

• With unlimited colr selec-tions, and

• Relatively inexpensive.

What is Powder Coating

The Architectural product range in-cludes a variety of proven products to meet local and international specifi-cations. These include BS6496, AS3715, AAMA2603-98, AAMA2604-98, AAMA605.2-92 and Qualicoat. The comprehensive range ensures that the right product is selected for the right project taking into consideration the expected dura-

bility, the environment, the finish and also the budget. A variety of gloss and colour are available for selection and Interpon Powder Coatings can be colour matched to almost any stan-

dard includ-ing metallic and pearles-cent fin-ishes.

Interpon D2000 is an excellent choice when long term durability is required. It has independent certification to AAMA605.2-92 and AAMA2604-98 and is guar-anteed for 15 years when applied by an approved applicator.

Kam Kiu have been proudly asso-ciated with Akzo Nobel for over 7 years and the full range of Inter-pon Powder Coatings is available to all users of Kam Kiu Aluminium products. Kam Kiu aluminium have also held the status of Ap-proved Applicator of Interpon D architectural powder coatings since 1995, shortly after the instal-lation of the Kam Kiu powder coat-ing line.

Interpon Powder Coatings - the world leader in powder technology

Akzo Nobel is the world’s larg-est producer of thermosetting powder coatings. Today the worldwide activities of Akzo Nobel Powder Coatings are brought to-gether under the global brand name of Interpon Powder Coat-ings.

Akzo Nobel is a quality-focused company. The businesses are supported by numerous quality accreditations including ISO9001 and ISO14001. Akzo Nobel also subscribes to the “Coatings Care” program

With over 25 years of sup-plying ad-vanced qual-ity powder coatings for

the most prestigious buildings worldwide, Akzo Nobel has an ex-cellent understanding of the ex-treme demands placed on archi-tectural powder coatings. Based on this experience, the Architec-tural range of Interpon Powder Coatings is the most versatile and advanced range available to pow-der coat aluminium extrusions / products for architectural end use.

The partnership formed

between Akzo Nobel and

Kam Kiu ensures that all powder coated aluminium

products coated with Interpon Powder Coatings meet or exceed the identified needs of all client.

Page 2

Volume 7

Continuous improvement must be a way of life for every manufacturing company. The G. W. Dion Company has been assisting aluminum extrusion companies throughout the world, with a growing cus-tomer base ranging from the

United States to Mexico to Chile to India to China. With over 30 years experience in the extrusion and die manufactur-ing fields many companies have benefited from their assis-tance.

Here is one of the areas that ex-truders often need assistance in:

Die Correction: Die correctors have one of the most demanding job duties in the extrusion facility. They are caught in the middle between die manufacturing and extrusion. It has been found that there is a real lack of communication between these three departments, (correction, manufacturing and extrusion). It is critical that all three de-partments work together, pro-viding as much information as possible to the correc-tion de-

partment. Many times the die correctors are correcting a die that was not handled properly at the press. If the extrusion department doesn’t process the die properly the die will not produce quality extrusions re-gardless of what the correction department does.

Commonly what is typically classified as “die problems” are many times extru-sion process related. For ex-ample: One extruder was get-ting blisters in the middle of the extruded length. The die correction department could not figure out how to avoid this problem. Many corrections to

the die were made with no im-provement. After observing the extrusion process it was discovered that the problem only occurred every seventh billet. Since a log shear was being used the extrusion de-partment wanted to increase recovery by using the short end of the log that was left after the last billet was sheared. The short end was combined with a longer piece from the next log.

This made a two piece billet that was subsequently placed in the container. Since the shear does not provide a clean, smooth end on either of the two pieces, gasses got trapper in the middle of the container between the tow pieces of billet. This caused the blis-ters in the middle of the extru-sion. As you can see the prob-lem was not die related at all.

This is just one example of how proper analysis of the complete process will help eliminate needless die correc-tion. Developing a plan to

properly analyze the prob-lems with the extrusion will save time and money in the long run.

Die Corrector—the most demanding job in the process

It is critical that die correction, die cutting and extrusion departments work together, providing as much

information as possible to the correction department

Page 3

G. W. Dion Company LLC 1910 Lakeville Road Leonard, Mi, USA 48367 Phone: 1-248-969-3022 Fax 1-248-969-0370 www.mich.com/~gwd Email gwd@mich.com

Glossary for Aluminium Extrusion:

Rm 17, 18/F, Concordia Plaza 1 Science Museum Road,

Tsimshatsui East, Kowloon, Hong Kong

Kam Kiu Aluminium Group

Logs are heat-treated following casting by a process called ho-mogenization. As the name in-fers this procedure produces a uniform distribution of alloying elements. It is a key both to ex-trudability and mechanical properties.

Logs are cut to billets,

which can be inserted to extru-sion presses. Numerous factors determine shorter billet sizes: maximum runout table length, weight per meter, number of strands, profile idiosyncrasies

Logs and Billets:

In the casting house, molten metal is poured into a mold and allow to cool to the solid cylin-

der state called “logs”.

and metallurgical constrains to name the major items. Before extrusion, the billets need to be heated. Most extruders like to use as cold a billet as possible to run the speed of extrusion as fast as possible, because extru-sion adds heat to the billet, but the product has a limit on how hot it can get before the surface tears.

Phone: +852 23020808 Fax: +852 23020062

Email: benson.wu@kamkiu.com

The Premium Aluminium Fabricator in Asia