Pacific Steel Casting in Berkeley has agreed to voluntarily reduce noxious odors coming from its 2nd Street plants in the face of a City Council proposal to declare it a public nuisance. After receiving a letter on Tuesday from Pacific Steel General Manager Joe Emmerichs agreeing to "cut odor and emissions while producing superior steel castings," Berkeley City Councilwoman Linda Maio pulled her proposal…

ASTANA (Kazakhstan) - Kazakhstan raised ferroalloy exports 4.8% in 2007 to 1.306 million tonnes, the National Statistics Agency said. Ferroalloy exports grew 49.4% in value, to $1.418 billion. Flat steel product exports increased 12.3% to 3.016 million tonnes and 75.5% to $1.648 billion. Unprocessed zinc exports fell 4.6% to 307,200 tonnes and rose 25.5% to $1.009 billion; alumina exports rose 4.2% to…

Luxembourg-based steelmaker ArcelorMittal has been laying the groundwork for two major steelmaking complexes, one in India and the other in Egypt. According to Industrial Info Resources of Sugar Land, Texas, ArcelorMitall has been allotted 7,750 acres of land by the government of the Indian state of Orissa to construct a planned 12 million tons-per-year steel mill in the town of Keonjhargarh. About 7,000…

Improvement of the surface finish for many parts increases fatigue life and reduces fuel consumption Increasing demands for higher product quality combined with pressure for cost reductions require new solutions, especially for suppliers of engine and transmission components as well as companies active in the fields of propulsion technology and energy production. One such solution is the worldwide patented…

DETROIT, Ohio (USA) - General Motors is offering a new round of buyouts to 74,000 U.S. hourly workers. GM announced the buyouts this morning as it was releasing its fourth-quarter and full-year earnings. GM said it lost nearly 39 billion dollars in 2007. The company has more than 10,000 UAW-represented workers in Ohio at an assembly plant in Lordstown, fabricating plants in Parma and Mansfield, a foundry in…

Campbell (Australia) - Car components with doubled mechanical strength, higher fatigue resistance and improved energy absorption are the result of a revolutionary CSIRO heat treatment process for high pressure die casting (HPDC) of aluminium. “Our heat treatment methods offer major improvements in tensile mechanical properties and enhancement of a range of other material properties for HPDC components,”…

Chennai (India) - The global casting production has almost touched the 100 million-tonne (mt) mark in 2007. The industry has broken the 90 million-tonne mark in 2006 to end at 91.4 million tonne. With the growth of 6.6% in ferrous castings and 10% growth in non-ferrous castings, the casting production would have crossed the 100 million-tonne mark, according to a latest census on World Casting Production.…

Article also available in Fully automatic production ensures competitiveness There are very few automotive manufacturers who do not purchase their rear view mirrors, or parts thereof, from Visiocorp Deutschland GmbH (formerly known as Schefenacker Mirrors GmbH) located in Southern Germany near Stuttgart. The company is not only strong in product development, sample production and design, but also…

NEW DELHI (India) - The Hinduja Group said that it is expanding its global automotive business with plans to widen the product portfolio of its commercial vehicles and foundries by foraying into components, construction equipment and technology. The group has rechristened LRLIH Ltd, the holding company of Ashok Leyland Ltd and Ennore Foundries Ltd, to Hinduja Automotive Ltd (HAL) and said that it was…

LONDON (Reuters) - Miner Xstrata has rejected a cash-and-shares takeover approach from Brazil's Vale pitched at just under 40 pounds a share, or 39 billion pounds ($76 billion), the Financial Times said. The newspaper quoted people close to the matter as saying London-listed Xstrata and its 35-percent shareholder, Swiss commodities trader Glencore, were holding out for a price equivalent to about 45 pounds…