metal-powder.net6 MPR September/October 2014

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EPMA celebrates 25th anniversary

The EPMA is celebrating its 25th

anniversary this year.

The EPMA has celebrated its 25th anniversary with a special one off seminar and annual meeting for its 60 members.

During the meeting, EPMA president Philippe Gundermann gave an over-view of the current improving financial and market situation in Europe. He also said he believed that the PM sector will continue to expand in the future because of its techno-logical advantages plus that it is fast-moving, lean, green, cost efficient, and innovative.

Jonathan Wroe, executive director of EPMA, gave an update of EPMA’s activities over the past twelve months which focused on key industry statistics, research projects, a range of working group activities, plus the successes of the PM sum-mer school and Euro PM2013 Congress in Gothenburg. He reported that the association has nearly recovered its mem-bership numbers to pre-crisis levels and produced a break even financial result in 2013.

Once the formal business was complete there followed a celebration dinner at the same venue, in which all past and current EPMA presidents were present.

Electronic PM

The following day, a special one day seminar, cover-ing the development of the European PM industry, took place. This one off event was intended to recognise the companies, people and technology that have made the European PM industry

the dynamic force that it is today, and to start the proc-ess of building data for an electronic PM archive, details of which will be released at the Euro PM2014 Congress & Exhibition, Salzburg in September.

Four papers were given covering the history of the main sectors of the industry, with Prof Paul Beiss, RWTH Aachen, providing an over-view of the press and sinter sector; Leo Prakash, Kyocera Unimerco, giving an personal view of the hard materials sector; Bruno Vicenzi, MIM Italia, giving a high speed overview of the impact of IPR and the development of MIM sector in Europe; and Olle Grinder, PM Technology AB, updating the audience on the relatively new technology of HIP, going back to the earli-est previously classified work in the 1950s.

Later Volker Arnhold, Arnold PM, put forward a list of candidates which could be viewed as market changing products for the PM industry

such as PF Con Rods and Adeline Riou, Erasteel SA, examined the recent devel-opments in additive manu-facturing as applied to metal powders.

Vision for the future

Finally, EPMA president Philippe Gundermann, Eramet Group, presented the case for the need for an updated European PM Roadmap, which will help to outline and develop a route forward for the industry in its relations with government, legislation and activities. This roadmap called ‘Vision 2025’ is currently being developed and should be available in its final form by January 2015.

For EPMA members that could not attend the London event, there will be a special 25th Anniversary commemorative celebra-tion taking place during the Euro PM2014 Congress & Exhibition at the Bishops Palace Residenz, Salzburg on 22 September.

Chilean mine produces over 0.1 million lbs of moly

Amerigo Resources Ltd has announced production results for the second quarter of 2014 from Minera Valle Central (MVC), a mine located near Rancagua, Chile.

The mine reportedly produced 0.152 million pounds of molybdenum during the three months ended June 30, 2014.

“MVC continued to process lower grade old tailings from the upper portion of the zone deposited by El Teniente during 2006-2007 when

repairs were being made to the tailings launder,” said Rob Henderson, Amerigo’s president and COO.

“We believe the grades of tailings processed will improve, but lower grades for Colihues are expected to persist to the end of the year.

“As a result, although we anticipate an improvement in production levels in H2-2014 guidance is being revised to 40 million pounds of copper and 500,000 pounds of molybdenum.”

SKF signs three-year Colombian deal

Argos, a South American cement producer in Latin America, has chosen auto-motive giant SKF to provide a range of engineering products and services for its operations in Colombia over the next three years.

“SKF has an extensive part-nership to support Argos in maximising the utilisation and reliability of its assets, thereby achieving its business objec-tives,” said Vartan Vartanian, President, SKF industrial market, regional sales and service. “We at SKF aim to

be a trusted advisor to Argos through all of its operations.”

SKF will provide Argos with condition-based maintenance services, mechanical serv-ices, reliability engineering services and condition moni-toring solutions. This will help Argos ensure that its con-veyors, gearboxes and mills operate reliably in its four biggest facilities in Colombia.

The company will also provide bearings, housings and seals to support Argos’ operations in 10 plants throughout Colombia.

MPR0514_news 6 05-09-2014 10:37:11