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Phelps Dodge cut may threaten rhenium availability


3/27/2001 Output curtailments announced on Monday by U.S. copper producer Phelps Dodge Corporation may interrupt or slow down the world supply of rhenium. Rhenium is a very rare metal found only in combination with copper and molybdenum, and produced in small quantities by refining those metals. Rhenium, due to its thermal characteristics, is a sought after catalyst and alloying agent to impart high temperature characteristics to other metals like tungsten and titanium.
Worldwide, there are only 3 rhenium commercial rhenium producers; Phelps-Dodge, Dzhezkazgan in Kazakhstan, and Polymet in Chile. Because so little is produced, exact production figures are not available.

Phelps Dodge is the world`s number two copper producer. On Monday company officials announced that due to electricity costs, it would curtail its production of copper by 80,000 tons at several plants in the USA. Other metals that occur in copper, such as rhenium and silver will be impacted.

The company also said it would cut molybdenum production by 3,200 tons this year. Additionally, the company said it would start alternating 30- to 60-day output cuts at its Tyrone, N.M., and Sierrita and Bagdad, Arizona, mines and plants.

Compared with copper, which is found in the earth`s crust in a ratio of 50 parts per million, rhenium is four parts per billion.

Prices are currently around $1,600/ kg for rhenium contained in ammonium perrhenate, but the market has a history of price volatility.

Source: Phelps-Dodge

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Wednesday February 14, 6:00 am Eastern Time
FEATURE-Rare metal rhenium reaches for skies in superjumbo
By Martin Hayes
LONDON, Feb 14 (Reuters) - When the world`s largest commercial aircraft, the superjumbo Airbus A380, takes to the skies in 2004, one of the vital constituents in its giant engines will be rhenium.
Rhenium, the last found naturally occurring element, was discovered only in 1925. It is resistant to very high temperatures, and is a necessary element in the superalloy used in the hot turbine blades at the rear of the A380`s four massive engines.
``Rhenium is used in the turbines of virtually all our engines, and will be used in future Trent (aircraft) engines,`` said a Rolls-Royce spokesman.
In a jet engine, cold air enters at the front, is compressed, mixed with fuel and ignited. This drives the turbine blades at the rear.
``The higher the temperature...the greater the thrust, and less unburned fuel is disgorged in the form of exhaust gases, such as nitrogen oxides. The superalloys that have been developed now cannot exist without rhenium,`` an industry specialist said.
At much higher operating temperatures there is less fuel burn, so these flying leviathans will travel much further for the same or less energy cost.
``Fuel efficiency is a constant driver. We are all designing engines that have better fuel burn,`` the Rolls-Royce spokesman said.
European plane maker Airbus Industrie`s [ARBU.UL] A380 will be powered by Roll-Royce (quote from Yahoo! UK & Ireland: RR.L) Trent 900 engines, as well as Pratt & Whitney (NYSE:UTX - news) and General Electric (NYSE:GE - news) GP700s.
Airbus already has commitments for 60 superjumbos, with sales of a further 50 A380s over the next 12 to 18 months.
It is not only the A380, which is yet to come -- the Rolls-Royce Trent series of engines, using the third generation of single crystal superalloys, already power many of the aircraft that circle the globe.
``The market is growing towards aircraft of the A380 size, and that is where the Trent family sits,`` the Rolls-Royce spokesman said.
Rolls-Royce Trent engines power Airbus A330s and A340s, Boeing (NYSE:BA - news) 777s as well as Boeing 747s.
THE HOTTER THE BETTER
The first generation of 60 percent nickel-base superalloys that were common a generation ago were predominantly tungsten, chromium and cobalt-based, using no rhenium and only a small amount of tantalum. However, engine performance was limited by temperature restraints.
But by the 1980s rhenium had been introduced as an alloying element. The alloy was typically three percent rhenium and 6.5 percent tantalum.
Now, third generation superalloys use the same 60 percent nickel base, but six percent rhenium and 8.5 percent tantalum.
The key gain is the much higher temperatures that the engine can operate at -- rhenium and tantalum have high melting points of 3,180 and 2,996 degrees Celsius respectively. Only tungsten and carbon have higher melting points than rhenium.
Because of this, the engine blades have improved `creep resistance` -- they are less susceptible to shape changes caused by rapid heating followed by equally rapid cooling.
Even at the time of maximum thrust -- during take-off -- turbine blade temperature is no higher than 2,000 degrees Celsius (3,632 degrees Fahrenheit), a Rolls Royce spokesman said.
Future super alloys may see ruthenium added to the mix, but the rhenium ratio will be maintained at six percent, underpinning demand from the aircraft industry for many years.
``The outlook is good, as aircraft technology can be applied elsewhere, such as industrial land-based gas turbines, which are used for marginal electricity demand at certain times of the day,`` the industry specialist said.
NONDESCRIPT IN APPEARANCE, BUT EXTREMELY RARE
Rhenium metal is dull-grey in appearance and takes its name from the Rhine river after its discovery by German scientists.
The first tonne was not produced until the mid 1940s. It is generally found in copper porphyry volcanic orebodies, which stretch from Chile, the Andes, the Rockies in North America, across the Bering Straits into Mongolia.
Only in Russia on the Kuril Island of Iturup, where rhenium in gas is emitted from the Kudryavy volcano, is it potentially possible for the metal to be exploited exclusively. Worldwide, there are very few producers -- Molymet in Chile, Phelps Dodge (NYSE:PD - news) in the U.S., and Dzeskasgan in Kazakhstan.
Also, it is extremely rare. Compared with copper, which is found in the earth`s crust in a ratio of 50 parts per million, rhenium is four parts per billion.
Production was still only three tonnes by the early 1970s, but the market has grown enormously since then -- a decade later output was around 20 tonnes a year, and the level now is some 40/45 tonnes annually.
Some traders say this may pose a major supply problem, as rhenium is not produced by itself -- it is a by-product of copper and molybdenum. So decisions taken on economic grounds by copper producers to close mines effect rhenium supplies, irrespective of its supply and price prospects.
But others said end-users -- engine makers and land-based industrial turbine manufacturers -- had secured their supplies. There may also be stockpiles of recoverable material generated by the price spike of the early 1980s.
``Demand is fairly well-defined for many years from the aircraft industry. If anything, there may be cancellations. These companies have covered their requirements, either with producers, or with super alloy manufacturers,`` a trader said.
But price movements of this metal are susceptible to extreme volatility -- potentially a major headache for superalloy makers when plotting costs on forward price curves.
Since the early 1970s, rhenium has fluctuated from $771 a kilo, peaking at $3,306 in early 1980s on one-off demand from the oil catalyst sector. From depressed levels around $350 in mid-1980s the price has risen to around $1,400 kg now -- making rhenium the eighth most expensive metal.
``That sounds a lot, but it translates to $43 an ounce -- so it is cheaper than gold, platinum, palladium, and rhodium,`` the industry specialist said.

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Oder vielleicht Ruthenium?
Man sollte nachrechnen, wieviel zusätzliche Nachfage für Ru dadurch entstehen könnte ...



IBM takes pixie dust to pep up storage
11:45 Tuesday 22nd May 2001
Reuters

A new type of magnetic coating, just three atoms thick, will quadruple the amount of data that can be stored on hard disks


IBM. said on Monday it had made a breakthrough in disk storage technology using a new type of magnetic coating it calls "pixie dust" that could allow even the smallest computers to store large amounts of audio and video.

The company said the new coating could quadruple the data density of hard disk drive products.

IBM`s new data storage breakthrough is a three-atom-thick layer of the element ruthenium, a precious metal similar to platinum, sandwiched between two magnetic layers.

The new multilayer coating, which IBM researchers have called "pixie dust," is expected to allow hard-disk drives to store 100 billion bits, or 100 gigabits, of data per square inch of disk area by 2003.

The highest density in current products is about 25 gigabits per square inch -- that means in every square inch of disk space could store five music CDs.

Within two years, IBM expects that the technology would allow for desktop computer hard drives with the ability to store 400 gigabytes, or the information in 400,000 books.

IBM is already shipping its Travelstar notebook hard disk drive products with data densities up to 25.7 gigabits per square inch. In time, IBM plans to implement the technology across all of its disk drive product lines.

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Wer zum Teufel hat diesen Thread heute schon 10x angeklickt (vor diesem Posting!)?

Rhenium war von März bis vor kurzem bei thebulliondesk.com mit bid/ask im Bereich 47$/58$ pro Unze angegeben, seit einigen Tagen ist die Spanne 37$/46$.
Ob diese Werte stimmen bzw. inwieweit sie tatsächlich über den Markt Auskunft geben, weiß ich nicht. Sieht aber nach einem deutlichen Preisrückgang aus. Vgl. auch die in den oberen beiden Artikeln genannten Preise von 43$/oz = 1400$/kg am 14.2. und 1600$/kg = 50$/oz am 27.3.
Damit ist die durch die Phelps-Dodge-Produktionskürzung erwartete Knappheit wohl ausgeblieben.