Zinc demand, supply on rise in 1990

The organization’s preliminary forecasts indicate an increase in consumption next year of more than 2%. The Brazilian and South Korean markets in particular are expected to remain strong.

Partially offsetting a rise in zinc consumption could be a slowdown in the rate of economic growth in the bigger industrialized nations.

On the production side, supply of the metal in 1990 is expected to grow to 5.73 million tons, up 400,000-500,000 tons. That forecast could be thrown off by delays and interruptions to mine and plant production schedules; in North America, for example, labor contracts are coming up for renewal next year at several major mines and smelters.

In the U.S., national production is expected to double with the huge Red Dog project of Cominco in Alaska coming on stream. (The first shipments are scheduled for late spring, 1990, depending on the ice breakup.) Canada and Australia will also provide additional production.

It has been an excellent year for zinc. Producer prices in the U.S. reached 95 cents (US) per lb in March. On the London Metal Exchange (LME), zinc averaged about 82 cents during the first half of the year, and was averaging ab out 79 cents to the end of November. In 1988, the metal averaged 56 cents on the LME and in 1987, 36 cents .

A softening in the automobile sector has had a marked effect on the metal, which is used as a rust- proofing agent. Orders for galvanized steel in the U.S. are reported to have peaked in May and June. Concern about a strike at Noranda’s Valleyfield, Que., zinc reduction facility may have helped to prop up the price; the Valleyfield workers agreed to a new contract in early November.

The study group is forecasting a 1989 zinc consumption level of 5.36 million tons, up 2% from 1988. Supply is expected to total 5.31 million tons, a 1% increase. Should the forecasts prove true, it will mark the second consecutive year demand for the metal has been greater than supply.

The U.S. will likely be the top producer-nation of silver this year. The Silver Institute of Washington, D.C., says the country will produce an estimated 65.8 million oz in 1989, more than perennial leader Mexico.

Production of silver in the U.S. in 1990 will total about 69 million oz, says the institute. The additional output is arriving in byproduct form, courtesy of all the new gold and copper production. The country’s silver output is expected to peak in 1991 at 73.4 million oz.

Mexico, meanwhile, is expected to see its total output drop this year to 59.2 million oz, and then rise slightly the next two years. Peru is expected to turn out 55.8 million oz this year, and 60.4 million oz and 60 million oz in 1990 and 1991, respectively.

After the U.S., Mexico and Peru, the Soviet Union is considered to be the next largest producer-nation of the precious metal. Canada is in fifth place.

Use of micro-organisms to extract and concentrate metals is a $2-billion(US) per year business worldwide, and growing at an annual rate of 12-15%, Falmouth Associates of Maine reports in a multi-client study.

The consulting firm says one- fifth of the world’s copper production involves microbes, where bioleaching is used to recover copper from low-grade ores.

A bioleach process used to recover gold from refractory ores was tested in 1987 in the Northwest Territories by Giant Bay Resources. A recovery rate of 95.6% was obtained using a microbial pretreatment step, compared with 65-70% using conventional cyanidation.

Researchers in Belgium report extracting 90% of the lead, zinc, copper, cadmium, nickel and cobalt from a dilute process waste steam with sulphur-oxidizing bacteria.

At Homestake Mining’s Lead, S.D., gold mine, a microbial cyanide-oxidation process is employed to clean up mill and mine waters.

Research has been undertaken to develop genetically engineered bacteria that remove sulphur and ash- forming metal impurities from coal prior to combustion (thus cutting back on pollution-forming gases).

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