TPT March 2012

G lobal M arketplace

set to produce 30 million mt of pig iron and 33.6 million mt of rolled steel in 2012. A preliminary forecast for 2011 put pig iron output at 28.9 million mt, and rolled steel output at 32.8 million mt. › In collaboration with Taiwan’s largest steel maker, China Steel Corp, and Brazil’s Companhia Brasileira de Metalurgia e Mineração (CBMM), a niobium producer, National Taiwan University (NTU) has established a steel research centre to promote the development of advanced steel technologies. At the 16 November opening ceremony, Yang Jer-ren, a materials science professor at NTU and director of the new facility, said: “We aim to become a world-class steel microstructure research centre and to develop energy-saving green steel products.” James Lee of Taiwan News also reported that CBMM does not have any R&D facilities or laboratories of its own but instead provides support to over 100 academic research programs worldwide. CBMM consultant David Jarreta said that the Brazilian company plans to seek affiliations with other Taiwanese institutions. › Northwest Pipe Co, a Vancouver, Washington-based producer of engineered welded steel pipe products, is planning a significant expansion to its Saginaw, Texas manufacturing facility. The project, prompted by the anticipated needs of large water projects in the US Northwest, will extend the company’s diameter and thickness range in spiral welded steel pipe to 126"x1" from 96"x 5 / 8 " – the current maximum. The improvements announced 16 January will include two new buildings, upgraded hydrostatic testing equipment, cement mortar lining capabilities, and new inside- and outside-diameter painting equipment. Completion is expected by the end of the year. Indians overseas India is fortunate in its nationals working elsewhere and sending money home Indians working elsewhere sent home just short of $60bn in 2010. This put India ahead of second-place China in terms of remittances from workers in alternate venues whose ties to their homeland remain strong. And, according to the World Bank, India is likely to have been the No 1 recipient of such inflows in 2011, as well. This has eased pressure on New Delhi at a time of dwindling foreign investment, and the government can probably rely on more help from its citizens overseas. Perhaps much more. Recently Dilip Ratha, a lead economist and manager of the Migration and Remittances unit at the World Bank in Washington, DC, has observed that Indian workers in growing numbers are heading out for North America, Europe and the Persian Gulf. Mr Ratha co-authored the “Migration and Development Brief” published 2 December by the bank. In a telephone interview from Geneva in December, he shared with the Indian news agency IANS his views on a puzzling trend: workers leaving India, which is “doing reasonably well,” for destination countries where the going is rougher. As reported in the Economic Times (Mumbai), Mr Ratha tied the phenomenon to cultural changes in India: “This is probably the reflection of an increased access to information and a rise in

the income levels of common people, which has enabled them to buy the air tickets and pay for the migration costs.” (“North America, Europe and Gulf Continue to Attract Indian Workers,” 4 December.) While there are no official figures available, Mr Ratha said that information gathered from Indian embassies and other sources confirm the migration. He sounded a cautionary note about the movement, which includes young women and has recently undergone a shift. At first, many unskilled Indian workers headed for the Gulf region. “Things are changing,” said Mr Ratha, who believes that both inbound and outbound Indian migration is set to increase. “[Now] they are also going to the US and Europe. The Indian missions and the government have greater responsibility to protect their interests.” Oil and gas Extracted from the Deepwater Horizon disaster: a wealth of information on the petroleum released by the spill “The results shed a brighter light on the fate and behaviour of the oil, and may help to prepare for future spills.” The oil referred to by marine chemist Christopher Reddy is that in the oil-gas mixture spewed into the Gulf of Mexico from the Deepwater Horizon spill in April 2010. A senior scientist with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) in Falmouth, Massachusetts, Dr Reddy is concerned mainly with the role of the oceans in the changing global environment. But he is a specialist in oil spills; and, as one of four WHOI participants in a recent National Academy of Sciences USA study, he helped amass a fund of information of interest to the oil and gas industry. Other keenly interested parties will include the US government and the British oil giant BP. An estimated 206 million gallons of crude shot from the riser pipe of the Deepwater Horizon , an offshore drilling rig on lease to BP, over the three months following a catastrophic explosion and fire in waters a mile deep and some 60 miles off the coast of Louisiana. As noted by the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, “The WHOI study also provides critical benchmarks, such as the ratio of oil to gas, that will prove important as the federal government seeks money from BP to pay for the response and recovery.” The study, released 9 January, presents atmospheric, surface, and subsurface chemical data to establish a “mass balance” of how much oil and gas was released, where it went, and the chemical makeup of the compounds that remained in the air, on the surface, and in the deep water. These provide a composite picture derived not from models but from sampling techniques employed in the Gulf itself, and just 18 months after the leak was capped: “a remarkably short period of time,” according to Dr Reddy. (“Chemical Data Quantify Deepwater Horizon Hydrocarbon Flow Rate and Environmental Distribution,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences). In addition to data from air and hydrocarbon samples collected by research vessels and by National Oceanic and Atmospheric

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