Based on China’s 2025 aluminum wire and cable export data to the Middle East, Saudi Arabia was the largest export destination in the region, with annual exports of 9,426.752 mt, accounting for 31.88 of the Middle East total

How the mighty have fallen. Silver was the talk of the town as it surged by roughly 60% in January trading, hitting highs of just above $120. That is a far cry from where we are trading now, with the precious metal suffering another 5% drop today and poised for six straight daily losses in nine.

Middle East tensions have sparked a massive steel trade "mismatch." Iran's blocked exports created a 2.3-million-ton billet vacuum in Southeast Asia, while the Red Sea crisis stalled China's flat steel shipments to the Gulf. Consequently, China and India are rapidly absorbing SEA's diverted billet orders. SMM projects that blocked flat steel returning to China's domestic market, combined with surging overseas billet demand, will accelerate the narrowing of the domestic HRC-rebar spread.

In the realm of industrial sustainability, few challenges loom as large as the management of bauxite residue, commonly known as red mud.

In the very recent Science and Technology Award of China Environmental Protection Federation 2023, Chinalco Shandong received prestigious recognition by winning the first prize for its scientific and technological progress in the comprehensive red mud utilisation project "Green Technology and Engineering Demonstration of Efficient Production of New Powder Materials by Bayer Process Red Mud".

China is the world's largest producer of alumina, but the issue of red mud (also known as bauxite tailings) disposal has always been a major concern.