NEW YORK -- Alcoa (NYSE:AA) today announced that it has received final approvals from the Government of the Russian Federation to proceed with its purchase of RUSAL's controlling interests in two fabricating facilities in Samara and Belaya Kalitva in the Russian Federation.

The approvals follow upon an understanding between Alcoa and the Federal Anti-Monopoly Service (FAS) resulting in an FAS private ruling on behavioral conditions to ensure that Alcoa complies with various legal requirements and notification obligations. In addition, Alcoa reached an agreement with a state owned procurement company guaranteeing that Alcoa will maintain the capability to supply certain Russian domestic needs through continued production at the two facilities. An Executive Order issued on December 22, 2004 allowed the agreement to be finalized and the behavioral conditions to be issued. These documents ensure the national interests of the Russian Federation have been addressed while also providing an additional legal framework for Alcoa's investment.

With the final government approvals in place, Alcoa and Rusal are taking the necessary steps to complete the transaction. Terms of the transaction will be disclosed when the deal has been completed, which is expected at the end of January 2005.

"We welcome this decision by the Russian government," said Alain Belda, Alcoa Chairman and CEO. "We have had good and productive consultations with the Russian government throughout this process and we are encouraged by this opportunity to invest in Russia. We are pleased that we have addressed the Russian government's concerns about the role these plants play in supporting domestic production and infrastructure needs. And we believe that the final working arrangements will protect both Alcoa's interests and those of the Russian Government. We look forward to continuing to work with both federal and local government officials as we expand our presence in Russia."

"The decision is an important step forward for both Alcoa and for RUSAL," said Alexander Bulygin, RUSAL's CEO. "For us, it means we can move ahead with our strategic focus on upstream and alloy production, and on expanding our raw materials access. We welcome Alcoa to Russia and anticipate continuing close relations in the future."

The Samara facility is located about 500 miles southeast of Moscow. It features cast house, flat rolled products, extrusion, and forging capabilities and serves customers in many markets, including transportation, packaging, and industrial products. The plant's production and quality control systems have been ISO 9001/9002 certified and is preparing for the ISO 14001 certification in Ecological Management.

The Belaya Kalitva facility is located about 500 miles south of Moscow. The facility also features cast house, flat rolled products, extrusions, tubes, and forgings capabilities. The Belaya Kalitva facility has specialized plate rolling and finishing equipment that will complement and increase Alcoa's present supply position. With Alcoa know how and management systems, the plant will not only be able to expand the product offerings for Russian customers but also will eventually be able to produce products for major customers in the west. The plant is ISO 9001 certified and is preparing for the ISO 14001 certification in Ecological Management.

As part of Alcoa, the two fabricating facilities will serve both the growing Russian market and global customers in Europe, Asia, and the Americas. The two facilities will join Alcoa's flat rolled products manufacturing system with operations in the U.S., Europe, Australia, China, and Brazil; the company's extrusion facilities in the U.S., Europe, Brazil, and Korea; and its wheels and forged products system with facilities in the U.S., Mexico, Japan and Europe. A team headed by Phil Collins, Alcoa Country Manager - Russia, has been organized to help facilitate the integration into Alcoa. Collins, who oversaw the successful integration of similar assets in Hungary into Alcoa, reports to Ric Belda, Executive Vice President European Region.

Alcoa is the world's leading producer and manager of primary aluminum, fabricated aluminum and alumina, and is active in all major aspects of the industry. Alcoa serves the aerospace, automotive, packaging, building and construction, commercial transportation and industrial markets, bringing design, engineering, production and other capabilities of Alcoa's businesses as a single solution to customers. In addition to aluminum products and components, Alcoa also markets consumer brands including Reynolds Wrap(R) aluminum foil, Alcoa(R) wheels, and Baco(R) household wraps. Among its other businesses are vinyl siding, closures, fastening systems, precision castings, and electrical distribution systems for cars and trucks. The company has 120,000 employees in 43 countries. For more information go to www.alcoa.com

RUSAL, a world leader in aluminium production was formed in March 2000 from the merger of a number of the largest smelters and other aluminium producers located in the CIS. The company accounts for 75% of Russia's primary aluminium output and 10% of the global primary aluminium output. RUSAL is a fully vertically integrated company with a complete production cycle from bauxite mining and the production of raw materials, to the production of primary metal, semi-products and aluminium-based end products. RUSAL is headquartered in Moscow.

The first building in the initial stage of the huge Potsdamer Platz development which is intended to give Berlin a new heart.

History

Potsdamer Platz was one of Berlin's most important squares before the War: not very beautiful, either in urban form or architecture, but full of life, trams and traffic, always changing - a German equivalent of Piccadilly Circus or Times Square with sometimes a decent building like Schinkel's gatehouses and Mendelsohn's Columbus Haus. Bombs and shells put an end to most of the buildings. Then came the Wall, and almost everything that was left was razed to allow the guards a clear field of fire over the desolate minefields.

When Germany was reunited over a quarter of a century later, it was clear from the start that a lively new Potsdamer Platz would have to be created as a symbol of the rebirth of the city and nation. With the Wall removed, the site could once more relate to its neighbours, the Landwehr Kanal to the south, with the Tiergarten park and the Reichstag a short distance to the north. Scharoun's great buildings, the Philharmonie and the Preussischer Staatsbibliothek could be brought into urban conversation, whereas they had previously been forlornly isolated up against the Wall.

A working group was set up by the Senate of Berlin in 1990 and a competition held for the whole site south of the Tiergarten, east of the library and west of Leipziger Platz. Entries and results (announced in 1991) were controversial, with Hilmer & Sattler producing a rather timid first prize scheme (which fulfilled the intentions of City Architect Hans Stimmann and Wolfgang Nagel, Berlin senator in charge of building to create a 'critical reconstruction' of the pre-1940 plan by retaining most of the old street pattern). O. M. Ungers collected second prize for a rationalist cluster of towers intended to mark the place on the map of Berlin (and Europe), but this was seen as too arrogant a gesture by the jury.

In 1991, the owners of the sites within the redevelopment area (huge companies: Daimler Benz, Sony and others) commissioned Richard Rogers to make a counter masterplan. In 1991, he produced a very formal ahistorical scheme radiating from a glazed circus which locked into the octagon of Leipziger Platz; the proposal successfully linked all the major elements in and around the site in a genial urban scale (AR January 1993, p21). The Senate turned the proposal down, but asked Hilmer & Sattler to incorporate some of Rogers' ideas, particularly natural ventilation and lighting of the buildings, into the masterplan.

The plan

The landowners were required to develop within the Hilmer & Sattler masterplan and each held further competitions. First prize in the Daimler Benz one went to Renzo Piano with Christoph Kohlbecker (AR November 1992, p4). The winner of the Sony competition was Helmut Jahn. The Daimler-Benz site is the most southerly one. To the north, before you get to the park is the Sony triangle where Jahn is building offices (including the firm's European headquarters), housing and shopping spaces round a giant ovoid urban entertainment centre which will contain the Filmhaus and Deutsche Mediathek, as well as an IMAX and numerous cinemas. To the east of the Piano site, is Linkstrasse, which will have a green linear park in its centre (is this a wise move?) and, on the other side, is to be a series of courtyard blocks on the A+T site designed within Giorgio Grassi's overall plan by different architects including Roger Diener and Jurgen Sawade. All these sites meet at the Potsdamer Platz itself: an irregular public space, not unlike the old one. It adjoins Leipziger Platz, which is to be recreated on its old octagonal plan (the hamfistedness of its first new building sadly promises some sort of scaleless neo-poMo extravaganza here).

Piano's parti for the Mercedes Benz site is not very complicated to understand in principle. (Though it is difficult to comprehend at the moment in the midst of the vast turmoil on the largest building site in Europe, all of which is amazingly intended to be completed at the end of this year.) From Potsdamer Platz, an avenue, Alte Potsdamer Strasse, lined with mature trees (which astonishingly survived all the destruction) runs south-west to the opposite side of the development area. Here, Marlene Dietrich Platz, a new pedestrian square is to be created, appropriately cradled in the arms of a new casino and a music hall. These back onto the great blank gold east wall of the Staatsbibliothek, into which it is hoped at some time to make a new entrance from Marlene Dietrich (though the library authorities are at the moment opposed to the move because of disruption caused by the colossal works to their east). The other major geometrical moves in the urban plan are retention of the traditional lines of north-south Linkstrasse and the boomerang of strangely named Eichhornstrasse (Acorn Street). From this simple matrix, the other thoroughfares of the complex take their pattern, much as would the minor streets of a nineteenth-century city after its main lines had been laid out.

BERYLLIUM OXIDE

UOx powder, 10,000-lb lots
(eff. 06/19/00) $100.00 [++]

ALLOYS CONTAINING BERYLLIUM
(typically 2%)

275 C BeCu casting alloy
(eff. 10/01/87) $6.30
165 C BeCu casting alloy
(eff. 10/01/87) $5.67
245 BeCu casting alloy
(eff. 10/01/87) $6.05
10 C BeCu casting alloy
(eff. 10/01/87)
(containing less than 0.5% Mg) $5.62
Per lb contined beryllium
(eff. 09/01/86) $6.05

BERYLLIUM METAL

99% Be Powder, $65 grade
1000- to 4,999-lb lots $350.00- [++]
(eff. 10/22/01) $4000.00

Vacuum-cast ingot (lump),
B26D Grade, up to 1,000-lb $325.00-
lots (eff. 10/22/01) $350.00

AlBeMet (Aluminium Beryllium)

Wrought Products, 62% Be / 38% Al
Sheet, Extrusions, Block
Up to 100-lb lots (eff. 01/01/95) $260.00

BERYLLIUM COPPER [+]

Strip, No. 25 (eff. 01/04/93) $8.90 [++]
Rod, bar and wire, No. 25 $9.85 [++]
(eff. 01/04/93)

BERYLLIUM COPPER MASTER ALLOY

F.o.b. Reading PA, Detroit, and
Elmore OH,
per lb contined beryllium
for 5-lb ingot (eff. 08/17/87) $160.00



(+)Beryllium copper alloys reflect a $0.90/lb base copper price. Prices
fluctuate weekly due to market variations in the price of cooper.

LONDON -- Norsk Hydro ASA is acquiring Toulouse, France,-based aluminum building systems manufacturer Technal for 73 million euros ($66 million) and the assumption of about 43 million euros ($39 million) of debt. The company said that final approval from regulatory authorities was awaited.

"With the acquisition of Technal, Hydro will be the worldwide leader in building systems based on aluminum extrusions," the Norwegian group said Hydra is already the largest soft alloy extruder in Europe and the second-largest worldwide.

Technal is France's largest manufacturer of building components used in such products as doors, windows and conservatories. The company was a subsidiary of Alca Inc. until 1999, when it was sold to an investment fund. It has an extrusion plant in Toulouse and sales offices in France, Portugal, Spain and the United Kingdom. The group as a whole employs 1,560 people and had a turnover of 250 million euros last year.

Norsk Hydro envisions the company being integrated into the Hydra Building Systems division of Lausanne-based Hydro Aluminium Extrusion, which has businesses throughout Europe, Latin America and the United States, and joint ventures in Asia and Africa.

Hydro's building division already is one of the market leaders in Germany and Italy, where Technal is not present, said Technal's chief executive officer, Patrick Tanguy. The integration of Technal will double the number of employees at Hydra Building Systems to 3,200.

With aluminum capturing more and more of the North American automotive market every year on a unit-content basis, it is hard to imagine the existence of many unsatisfied people in the aluminum industry. Such people do exist, however--quite a few of them, in fact--because the principal growth segment of their business in the auto sector continues to involve castings, and they'd like to see the same kind of growth for stamping, extruding and forging alloys.

Those three classes of alloys gain a little in the auto market almost every year, but not nearly as much as casting alloys do, and more applications than the aluminum industry would like for the three are term-limited. That is, some are temporary applications representing spot remedies for overweight conditions in a line of vehicles, and tend to last only until the auto engineers can figure out a way to get the original, heavier material back into use. That's usually because the original material is less expensive.

Often, the aluminum component stays as it is until the vehicle is redesigned, which means it may have a life of five, six or seven years. Understandably, the aluminum industry wants the redesigned vehicles to employ its material in the same stamping, extrusion or forging, and in some new applications, as well.

It looks as though the typical North American-built family vehicle in 2002 will have almost 5 percent more aluminum in finished parts applications than it did in 2001, and that would represent a gain of 12 or 13 pounds per vehicle. The majority of the new uses will involve castings, however, including engine blocks, heads, suspension system control arms, and other parts that are medium or large in size and produced in substantial volumes. Most employ casting alloys A380, A319 or A356.

Because of the recessed condition of the market for new cars and light-duty trucks, the aluminum industry as a whole is not getting a lot of enjoyment out of its business with the auto sector this year. However, the suppliers of specification alloys for die casting, lost foam, low pressure and gravity semipermanent mold casting are enjoying it more than others. Some smelters are doing better than others in their highly competitive industry, but just about all of them are pleased by the fact that applications for the three alloys mentioned above, especially, are increasing.

Engine blocks, heads, wheels, control arms, axle housings, crossmembers and the like are big enough to provide the auto engineers with significant weight-savings when aluminum is specified in place of iron or steel, and when those components are made in aluminum, they are usually made as castings. Now and then, big auto parts are forged or extruded--also with significant weight-saving benefits--but usually the forming technique chosen is casting.

Engines continue to represent the single biggest growth application for aluminum, and that will continue to be the case for awhile, the auto engineers say Millions of engines are still being built with iron blocks--and some have iron heads, also--every year, and when these components are converted to aluminum, they are going to stay converted for a long time--i.e., for 10 or 20 years. These conversions are not spot remedies, but tend to last as long as the engines last, even through modifications and design alterations.

Between 5 million and 6 million more all-aluminum engines per year are expected to be in production in North America by 2006 than were being built at the end of last year. Those additional aluminum-block/aluminum-head engines will provide an estimated 700 million pounds or so, net, of new aluminum applications annually. When those engines are in circulation, there still will be some engines with iron blocks and/or heads being built by the automakers in the United States, Canada and Mexico.

It is an entirely different story, however, for aluminum sheet, extrusion and forging alloys, such as hoods, deck lids, fenders, liftgates, bumper beams, structural components, radiator parts and knuckles. New applications for these materials by 2006 are expected to amount to only a fraction of those for casting alloys. The near-term picture, therefore, is not a lot different-- or brighter--than it has been in the past 12 years or so.

Many aluminum industry executives want badly to see things change, and there are a few scenarios for the longer term that might satisfy their wishes. One of these has to do with creative component designs, with the aluminum companies doing the design work and promoting the applications to the automakers. It costs money to do this, and the aluminum producers historically have not been as willing as the steel and plastic industries to spend their money on such projects. However, two of the world's biggest firms, Alcoa Inc., Pittsburgh, and Alcan Aluminium Ltd., are expected to do more and more creative development/selling work of this kind, and probably will be followed by others.

It will take a few years for this to pay off in noteworthy ways. Alcoa went to considerable lengths in the summer (AMM, Aug. 13) to explain how this approach could pay off for the automakers, themselves, who are constantly seeking ways to differentiate their products from those of their competitors.

The Norwegian company is undertaking due diligence on VAW, which it sees complementing its existing operations VAW is particularly strong in rolled products and engine castings, while Hydro's strengths lie in primary metal production and extrusions.

"It's quite a good fit for them. It strengthens Hydro's position in Europe," said John Martin, research manager for aluminum metal and raw materials at CRU International.

"It's not much of a surprise," aluminum analyst Angus MacMillan at Brook Hunt said. He added that Hydro had said it was looking to expand, but in the present economic situation it had been forced, to delay plans for greenfield projects.

"It makes more sense to invest in existing capacity," MacMillan said.

A number of other aluminum companies have been interested in VAW since it was put up for sale last year.

Alcan Inc. confirmed its interest in April of this year. The two companies share an interest in the Alunorf rolling mill in Germany, and Alcan might still be keen to expand in Europe despite the failure of its planned merger with Pechiney SA.

Paris-based Pechiney itself has also been rumored as a buyer. But Pechiney's president, Jean-Pierre Rodier, said earlier this year that while his company might be a potential buyer for some of VAW's assets, it is extremely unlikely to be a bidder for the company as a whole because of antitrust concerns.

Just last month E.ON was reportedly close to concluding a deal with British investment group CVC Capital Partners, but neither party would confirm their involvement in a deal.

E.ON said the sale is unlikely to be finalized until the first quarter of 2002, when it can take advantage of new German tax regulations on disposals that come into force in the new year.

CRESSONA, Pa.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 10, 1996--Alumax Extrusions, Inc., a subsidiary of Alumax Inc. (NYSE: AMX; Toronto: AXI), today announced that it has signed a definitive agreement for the sale of the company's Franklin, New Hampshire facility, including one of the two presses at this facility, to Aavid Engineering, Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Aavid Thermal Technologies, Inc. Alumax Extrusions will relocate the second press to one of its other manufacturing facilities.

Terms of the sale were not disclosed. Closing is expected to occur in approximately one month.

The Franklin, New Hampshire facility was acquired by Cressona Aluminum Company in 1994 from Alcan Aluminium, Ltd., in a transaction in which Cressona also acquired a four-press extrusion operation in Elizabethton, Tennessee. Cressona Aluminum Company was acquired by Alumax on January 31, 1996.

Aavid Thermal Technologies, Inc., headquartered in Laconia, New Hampshire, is a leading provider of thermal management products that dissipate unwanted heat in electronic and electrical components and systems.

Alumax Extrusions, Inc., headquartered in Cressona, Pennsylvania, is a world leader in the manufacture of soft-alloy aluminum extrusions for the building and construction, transportation, machinery, electrical and consumer durables markets. Through its Cressona Aluminum business unit, Alumax Extrusions is a leading supplier to the service center industry.

Alumax Inc. is a world leader in aluminum with year-end 1995 assets of more than $3.1 billion and 1995 revenues of more than $2.9 billion.

Alumax produces and markets primary aluminum ingot, billet and slab and is a major fabricator of value-added aluminum products for the building and construction, transportation, packaging and consumer durables industries.

D[ddot{U}]SSELDORF -- Austrian aluminum company Austria Metall AG (Amag) posted an 11.7-percent increase in 1999 earnings despite a 6-percent decline in turnover to 556.6 million euros ($520.2 million) due to low aluminum prices in the first half of the year.

Pretax earnings rose to 33.4 million euros ($31.2 million) from 29.9. million euros in 1998. While all units operated at good capacity, German subsidiary Aluminium Unna AG suffered noticeably from internal structural problems and was divested in a staff buyout, Amag said.

The extrusions plant and rolling mill at Amag's main operation in Ranshofen countered the pressure on margins by improved output and a better production mix, Amag said, noting that the rolling mill lifted its output by some 5,000 tonnes to 95,000 tonnes.

Amag said that it expected volumes, at the extrusions plant to decline slightly this year as it had reduced its capacity shifts in favor of flexibility. Due to a restructuring of internal operations, which won't affect the bottom line until next year, the company expects a rather modest operating profit this year.

Amag added that it expected rolling mill sales to remain at a high level, with an expansion of its market position in the United States and the Far East.

TOKYO -- Japanese output of aluminum mill products declined in July for the first time in 15 months--slipping 0.1 percent. From the same month last year to 211,145 tonnes.

July production of rolled products fell 1.4 percent to 117,134 tonnes--the first year-to-year decline in 16 months--due to a 20-percent decline in exports despite high domestic demand in such sectors as foil, can stock, printing, fins, automotive and wholesale/retail, according to the Japan Aluminium Association. Production of aluminum foil, spurred by increased demand from capacitor manufacturers, climbed 2.6 percent in July--the 16th consecutive monthly increase--to 12,479 tonnes.

July production of extrusions increased 1.5 percent to 94,011 tonnes thanks to continuing strong demand from the semiconductor manufacturing equipment, office automation equipment and automobile industries.

The association said that confirmed figures for the first six months of this year put total output of aluminum mill products at 1,216,880 tonnes, up 3.5 percent from the same 1999 period--the first year-to-year gain in three years.

The six-month total comprised an all-time high of 682,810 tonnes of rolled products, up 2.5 percent in the first increase in two years, and 534,070 tonnes of extruded products, up 4.8 percent, in the first rise in three years. Production of aluminum foil climbed 2.4 percent in the first six months of the year to 73,392 tonnes.

While each aircraft manufacturer is taking its own approach, many--both in the commercial and the military sectors--are taking a hard look at their buying practices and making changes to guarantee just-in-time deliveries and other efficiencies.

Perhaps the most pronounced changes have come in the commercial aerospace sector, where the Seattle-based Boeing Commercial Airplanes Group of Boeing Co. has consolidated its aluminum flat-roll and extrusions supplier base and integrated purchasing of these products. This accounts for much of their materials purchases, as aluminum comprises about 80 percent of their aircraft, under a single service provider--the TMX Aerospace Division of Thyssen Inc. North America, Detroit. TMX is also integrating Boeing's purchases of titanium. Likewise their major competitor, Airbus Industrie of Toulouse, France, is converting itself from a consortium of four European companies into one integrated entity that will eventually, once its metamorphosis is complete next year, utilize centralized metals purchasing.

While many original equipment manufacturers in aerospace and elsewhere have taken moves to consolidate their supplier base and gain greater control of their metals purchasing and other requirements, Boeing's move, according to Jeffrey Phelan, a program manager for the aerospace giant's supply management and procurement division, said, is the first time that it has been done to this extent.

What Boeing Commercial is trying to do, said Sid Rose, senior raw materials manager, at a recent National Association of Aluminum Distributors meeting, is "rightsize" its supply base in an effort to come up with a fully integrated supply chain management system that best utilizes aluminum distributors and mills. This, he said, has reduced Boeing's purchases of aluminum flat roll and extrusions by just buying what the company truly needs.

Prior to this move, which was initiated about 2 1/2 years ago, Boeing's purchasing method was very inefficient, Rose said. "Every division operated independently with each having its own supply chain and its own customers," he said. "We didn't do anything together."

Pushed by the company's new thinking that followed Boeing's merger with McDonnell Douglas, this move, which has been termed as the Millennium Contract, was the brain child of the company's strategic sourcing team that was charged with identifying and implementing best practices across the company. Under this new program, Boeing Commercial now contracts with five aluminum producers--Alcoa Inc., Pittsburgh; Pechiney Rolled Products LLC, Ravenswood, W.Va.; Hoogovens Aluminium Walzprodukte GmbH, Koblenz, Germany; Kaiser Aluminum Corp., Houston; and Universal Alloys Co., Canton, Ga.--and three titanium producers--Titanium Metals Corp., Denver; RTI International Metals Inc., Niles, Ohio; and VSMPA of Russia. This is a 50-percent drop from the number of aluminum and titanium mills it used to buy from, and using just TMX represents an 80 percent decline in metal distributors.

However, TMX's role, Rose explained, is somewhat different than that of previous metal service centers. "They also take the time to call on our customers to determine what they are buying, forecast demand and try to provide us with all that data so we can determine what orders need to be placed."

This program, Phelan said, is still only about 80 percent implemented and will not be fully in place for another two years, which was the planned time frame to allow for previous long-term contracts to expire.

Thus far, he said, it has been working well, although there were some growing pains, especially during the beginning of 2000, when a lot of suppliers came on-stream at one time. But since then, he said, many of the kinks have been ironed out, as Boeing and its parts suppliers as well as the mills and TMX get used to the new way of doing business. "Purchasing is more streamlined, forecasting is more accurate, the mills produce what we need when we need it. It has definitely consolidated the supply chain, taking out a lot of the waste," he said.

Whether Boeing will extend this concept to other products in its commercial airplane group, such as aluminum rod, bar and tubing, or to its military airplane unit, is still uncertain, Phelan said, stating that it is possible if this program continues to be successful. "It is a company-wide effort to make efficiency gains, but the decision to expand it lies with our strategic sourcing team."

As for Airbus, as of 1967 the European commercial aerospace manufacturer had been a consortium of four leading companies, each of which were responsible for specific components of the aircraft, a spokesman explained. BAE Systems Plc of England has been responsible for the wings; Construcciones Aeronauticas SA (Casa) of Spain has been responsible for the tail sections; Aerospatiale Matra SA of France was responsible for the cockpit and wing center sections; and DaimlerChrysler Aerospace AG (Dasa) of Germany was responsible for the fuselage. The planes were assembled by Aerospatiale and Dasa. Each company, which had other operations not involved in Airbus, was responsible for purchasing the metals and other materials for their own components.