Aurubis AG, a leading global provider of non-ferrous metals and the largest copper recycler worldwide, is building a new facility to more efficiently pre-process metal-bearing intermediates through automated separation, sorting and sampling at the Hamburg site. The facility will be another milestone for processing complex raw material flows more safely and with even more precision in the future.
The investment project was approved last week, clearing the path for continued expansion of the multimetal expertise at the company’s largest production site. The facility is scheduled for commissioning in late 2028. The investment will enhance the distinction between different metal phases, improve their valuation, and optimize material and process control. This will contribute to the site’s future earnings while setting the stage for additional potential investments in the smelter network.
Hamburg continues developing its multimetal expertise
Following the successful commissioning of Complex Recycling Hamburg (CRH) in July 2026, a globally one-of-a-kind system for recycling strategic metals, Aurubis is continuing the site’s development into a state-of-the-art hub for processing complex raw materials, recycling materials, and metallurgical intermediates. The new facility will complement existing production and recycling processes and boost the company’s capability to manage and process valuable metals even more efficiently within its own smelter network.
Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund Mubadala Investment Company plans to maintain annual investment of $39 billion with a focus on Asia, its chief financial officer said on Wednesday.
“Last year, we invested about $39 billion, which is roughly 10 per cent of our portfolio, and our aim is to continue doing that through all cycles. Every year, we want to deploy that same amount,” Carlos Obeid told the Milken Institute Asia Summit in Singapore.
Asia will be “important” as the fund continues to boost its investment around the globe, he added. China, the world’s second-largest economy, South Korea, India and Japan will be the main countries where it plans to ramp up investment in Asia.
“We’ve been trying diligently over the last few years to increase our exposure to Asia,” Mr Obeid said. “Three years ago, the share of the portfolio invested in Asia was about 10 per cent, it is now about 13 per cent, and we want to do more.”
“We’ve been present in China, South Korea, Japan and India, and want to grow those exposures because we believe there are a lot of opportunities across all the strategies and themes.”
Energy transition, “technology everywhere”, the recreation of global supply chains and the evolving consumer are four areas Mubadala wants to focus.
“Our strategy has been aligned with the objectives of the government: generating returns, but at the same time integrating the economy into the global economy,” Mr Obeid said.
“The way we do that is by partnering with the best companies through our private equity investments, both direct and indirect.”
Mubadala, which invests on behalf of the Abu Dhabi government, has been steadily expanding its global investment portfolio with a focus on sectors including renewables, mobility, advanced technology, AI and life science. The sovereign investor’s portfolio spans six continents across asset classes.
Last year, it reported a 17 per cent annual rise in assets to $385 billion, driven by growth sectors in the UAE and abroad.
Last month, it announced a significant minority investment in Chinese coffee chain Luckin Coffee alongside its controlling shareholder, Centurium Capital, in a deal worth about $1 billion.
Mubadala is betting on confidence in China’s consumer sector with demand for freshly brewed coffee continuing to grow in the country.
It has investments in India, including Reliance Industries telecom arm Reliance Jio and other companies. It is also investing in India through Investcorp, in which Mubadala has a 20 per cent stake.
By Andrew Topf - Oct 07, 2026, 2:00 PM CDT
Google/Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG) says it has contracted 3,590 megawatts of power from Constellation Energy (NASDAQ:CEG) in the largest US power grid, PJM Interconnection, which serves 67 million people across 13 states and Washington, D.C.
New nuclear energy will account for about a quarter of that supply, or 890 megawatts.
Artificial intelligence and data center expansion have drastically increased Google's electricity usage and carbon emissions.
Major tech companies are racing to secure massive amounts of electricity supplies to power data centers across the US by striking unprecedented power deals and reviving the country’s nuclear industry, Reuters reported on Tuesday.
Unlike renewables, nuclear provides continuous base-load power.
Data centers are inherently energy-intensive, and their power consumption is projected to double globally by 2030, reaching around 945-980 terawatt-hours (TWh) annually. In some countries like the US, they could account for up to 12% of total electricity consumption by 2030, straining existing power grids.
The Google-Constellation deal involves adding capacity at several of Constellation’s nuclear reactors in the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic regions.
“The 20-year power purchase agreement will enable investments in new equipment and technology at 11 Constellation-owned nuclear units in Illinois, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey, increasing thermal and electrical efficiency to unlock additional reliable, firm power to serve the grid,” Constellation wrote in a statement.
The company will make over $4.3 billion of new investments in its fleet as part of the agreement. Electricity from the first of the upgraded plants would be delivered in 2028.
Reuters notes the agreement between Google and Constellation is in response to PJM’s “bring your own power” proposal:
Rising electricity demand driven largely by the data center expansion has contributed to a more than 11-fold increase in PJM capacity prices since 2024 and left the grid with a power shortfall.
In response, PJM management has proposed requiring data center customers connected to the 13-state grid to either bring their own power or face being shut off from grid power remotely in times of peak demand.
The Google-Constellation deal is the latest in a string of nuclear power announcements involving “Magnificent Seven” tech companies.
Google has also contracted to restart NextEra Energy’s (NYSE:NEE) nuclear power plant in Iowa. Constellation has agreed to restart its Three Mile Island reactor in Pennsylvania to serve Microsoft’s (NASDAQ:MSFT) data centers.
Constellation has a 20-year power purchase agreement announced Sept. 30 with Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) to supply it with 690 megawatts from its Calvert Cliffs nuclear plant in Maryland; and a 20-year virtual PPA with Meta (NASDAQ:META) for 1,121 MW of power.
In August, Oilprice reported that Major data center operator Equinix (EQIX.O) announced a series of agreements to secure advanced nuclear electricity, including power purchase agreements and a pre-order for microreactors, to fuel its data centers. The move comes as the growing energy demands of data centers, driven by technologies like generative artificial intelligence (AI), raise concerns about global power supplies.
According to a company statement, the agreements are part of Equinix's long-term strategy to ensure a stable and sustainable electricity supply for its global operations. The deals are expected to provide more than one gigawatt of electricity to Equinix's data centers, a significant step as the company plans for future growth.
The United States accounts for roughly 30% of global nuclear electricity generation, making it the world’s top nuclear provider. Other significant nuclear states include France, China, Russia and South Korea.
The 94 operating reactors spread across commercial power plants produce about 782,000 gigawatt-hours (GWh) annually, which supplies nearly 18-19% of the total electricity used in the country.
The last new nuclear reactor built in the US is Vogtle Unit 4 in Burke, Georgia, which began commercial operation in April 2024.
Vladimir Putin greets Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner (L) and real estate developer Steve Witkoff (C) in the Kremlin, Moscow, Russia, September 5, 2026
I joined Ukrainian journalist Daniel Tkiie for a 29-minute analysis of Ukraine’s resistance against Russia’s full-scale invasion, beginning with the Kremlin’s dangling of billion-dollar deals before Donald Trump’s envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner.
I lay out the proposal for the overseas assets of Russian oil giant Lukoil to be sold to a consortium including a leading donor to the Trump camp and three Middle Eastern businessmen. Two of those businessmen are connected to Witkoff, his son Zach Witkoff, and Eric and Donald Trump Jr. through the cryptocurrency firm World Liberty Financial. The other is linked to Kushner through a luxury resort project in Albania worth more than $5 billion.
Lukoil’s overseas assets have an estimated worth of $22 billion.
I consider how the Kremlin’s maneuvers will affect the Trump Administration’s push for Ukraine-Russia talks. Can Vladimir Putin manipulate Witkoff and Kushner so Moscow can proceed with its winter airstrikes trying to break Ukraine? Or will another faction within the Administration maintain the effort for a ceasefire on current frontlines?
https://eaworldview.com/2026/10/ukraine-trump-kremlin-deals/
Ships anchored off the coast of Khasab in Oman's Musandam Governorate, near the Strait of Hormuz, on Oct. 2. | AFP-JIJI
BLOOMBERG
Oct 7, 2026
Iran has increased the pace of attacks on tankers in the Strait of Hormuz in recent days, just as oil shipments through the world’s most important energy chokepoint approach prewar levels.
U.K. Maritime Trade Operations has reported nine attacks in the waterway already this month, half the total number it reported for all of September in the Strait of Hormuz and Persian Gulf combined. Last month’s figure was boosted by four assaults in the final two days, underscoring the recent acceleration.
Vessels in Hormuz have been targeted for much of the Iran war, but with varying degrees of intensity. Previous waves of heavy strikes have led to brief reductions in shipments, though those declines have often been offset by higher volumes in subsequent days.
Maritime security officials and shipping executives have said it’s not yet clear whether the latest escalation will mean Hormuz shipments fall. The impact on seaborne gas flows, which also edged up in recent weeks, remains uncertain too.
How much energy flows through Hormuz is vital for the direction of oil and gas prices, particularly ahead of winter in the Northern Hemisphere. Recent price gains have fanned concerns that sustained inflationary pressure could spur higher interest rates across major economies.
In a bid to loosen the market, a number of consuming nations last week announced plans to release millions of barrels of emergency stockpiles, while U.S. President Donald Trump has been studying ways to tame domestic fuel prices ahead of midterm elections.
Any pullback in Hormuz flows would only add to those risks.
U.S. Vice President JD Vance, who has played a role in Washington’s negotiations with Tehran, told Reuters that any agreement to reopen the strait and end the war would require Iran to reduce its ability to enrich uranium rather than merely offer assurances of future nuclear drawdowns.
He told Reuters the U.S. was in talks with Iran’s president and foreign minister but added that it was unclear who in that country was making decisions.
Brent crude rose 0.8% to over $101 a barrel in early Asian trading as investors weighed increased flows through the Strait of Hormuz against a pickup in Iranian attacks on vessels.
“Iran appears to be seeking to assert greater control over the Strait of Hormuz through one of its most established instruments of coercion: fear and uncertainty,” wrote Dimitris Maniatis, CEO of risk management firm Marisks, in a note. “Iran does not need to stop every vessel; it needs the maritime industry to believe that any vessel could be next.”
Most of the tankers transiting Hormuz do so using a corridor near the coast of Oman. They’ve generally been crossing with their digital signals switched off, leaving traders and analysts to pore over satellite images and shipping data to try and work out exactly how much supply is moving.
On Tuesday, Oman’s defense ministry said in a statement that it rescued 10 crew members from the commercial vessel On Peace, which caught fire after being attacked. Ship data shows the vessel is an oil tanker.
The flow of oil through the waterway has steadily picked up since the start of summer, and last week some Wall Street banks said shipments were approaching prewar levels. Top commodity traders said this week at the Energy Intelligence Forum in London that they see Mideast flows at around 80% of where they were before the conflict began. That had helped bring Brent crude back below $100 a barrel.
Shipments of liquefied natural gas have been more limited since the war started but have also quietly picked up prior to the latest attacks. The uptick was slower than in oil, reflecting the fact that LNG is transported in a much smaller fleet of highly specialized carriers that keep the fuel cryogenic.
The latest assaults have also led to a fresh surge in freight rates. The cost of carrying oil from inside the Persian Gulf to China rose to a record $1.3 million a day Monday, according to data from the Baltic Exchange in London. The rate averaged close to $60,000 a day last year and has soared as the number of shipowners willing to cross Hormuz dwindled.
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2026/10/07/world/iran-ship-attacks-hormuz-oil/
By Alex Kimani - Oct 07, 2026, 7:00 PM CDT
Kpler estimates Middle East crude and condensate exports averaged roughly 16.5 million barrels per day (bpd) in September and exceeded the pre-war average of 18 million bpd on several days during the final week of the month. That recovery has done surprisingly little to bring oil prices back down, as we noted earlier this week. Producers are moving more crude through alternative pipelines and ports, while tankers moving through Hormuz increasingly rely on U.S. military escorts and vessel-intensive chains of ship-to-ship (STS) transfers. Brent crudeis still trading around $100 per barrel, nearly $30 per barrel above its pre-war level. Iran could be quietly collecting tolls from ships transiting through the Strait of Hormuz, with exporters passing on these costs to consumers. According to Michelle Brohard, head of policy and geopolitical risk at Kpler, certain Gulf nations could have quietly struck deals with Iran to keep their oil flowing on fears that they cannot rely indefinitely on Washington to keep Tehran at bay.
“I suspect there is a toll that’s being paid, which is giving these ships safe passage,” Brohard said in an interview with energy analyst Rory Johnston last week. “I also suspect that these countries know that this is unsustainable from a perspective of [the] US escorting [ships], and also unsustainable from them paying Iran 10 percent of their cargo, or 20 percent of their cargo. So you’re starting to see like what I would call like a race to get out as much as possible, as quickly as possible before the war restarts,” she added.
Posco Future M Company, the battery materials unit of South Korea's Posco Holdings, has signed a KRW 6 trillion (US$ 4.5 billion) deal to supply lithium iron phosphate (LFP) cathode materials to local battery manufacturer Samsung SDI Company, as the company continues to strengthen its position in the global battery supply chain. Posco Future M supplies cathode and anode materials to all three major South Korean battery manufacturers, including SK On Company and LG Energy Solution,
Under this latest agreement with Samsung SDI, Posco Future M will supply close to 400,000 tons of LFP cathode active material to Samsung SDI over a five-year period, between 2027 and 2032. The company confirmed that the contracted amount is more than double the 190,000 tons of LFP cathode materials covered by an earlier agreement signed in August.
The two companies said that they have consolidated all individual supply contracts into a master agreement, further strengthening a partnership that began in 2023 with the supply of NCA (nickel cobalt aluminum) cathode materials. The new orders will help Posco Future M improve its capacity utilization and strengthen its raw materials sourcing.
Posco Future M and Samsung SDI plan to expand their collaboration into lithium manganese oxide (LMO) cathodes and synthetic graphite anodes, which would make Posco Future M the only South Korean producer of NCA, LFP and LMO cathodes, which it says will help automakers and battery manufacturers adapt to changing sourcing requirements.
https://finance.yahoo.com/technology/articles/posco-us-4-5bn-lfp-115403399.html
The world’s 50 most valuable mining companies lost a combined $264 billion in market value in September, ending the month with a capitalization of $2.26 trillion. This was the second-largest monthly decline in MINING.COM’s Top 50 ranking since the end of 2019, OilPrice reports.
The September decline wiped out about three-quarters of the record $357 billion gain in August. Inflation concerns caused by rising oil prices contributed to a bond sell-off, while Bloomberg’s government bond yield indicator climbed to its highest level since mid-2008. On September 16, the US Federal Reserve raised its key rate by 0.25 percentage points, to a range of 3.75–4%.
Decline in gold mining companies
Gold futures in New York fell by 6.4% over the month, to $4,158 per ounce, while silver lost 9%. All 15 gold mining companies represented in the ranking ended September in negative territory, with their combined market value declining by $79 billion, or 12.7%.
Shandong Gold shares fell the most among them, dropping 27.8% after the company lowered its gold production target for 2026. Kinross Gold lost 21.3% after revising its production forecast for 2026 and 2027 due to a harsh winter at La Coipa in Chile and lower ore grade and metal recovery rates at Round Mountain in Nevada.
Pressure on copper and lithium
Copper producers lost $44 billion in market value, although the metal’s price at the end of September differed little from its level at the beginning of the month. BHP recorded the largest absolute decline in market capitalization in the ranking, down $26.4 billion. At the Escondida copper mine in Chile, a worker died during maintenance on September 23, prompting a temporary suspension of operations.
Lithium carbonate futures in Guangzhou fell 22.5%, to 122,800 yuan per tonne. This followed a change in inventory calculation methodology by the SMM agency, which more than doubled the estimate of lithium inventories in China to 175,000 tonnes. Albemarle and Ganfeng Lithium lost more than one-fifth of their value and dropped out of the Top 50 ranking.
The IMF now warns that high energy prices, record public debt and the cost of AI investment are squeezing government balance sheets at the same time. When states feel the pinch, capital tends to chase hard assets that cannot be printed. Copper sits squarely in that camp. This piece walks through three low cost copper producers from our screener that aim to give you targeted exposure to that theme.
The stocks below are just a starting sample, and the full screen turned up 13 more copper producers with equally compelling narratives that are not covered here.
Hindustan Copper (BSE:513599)
Hindustan Copper is a fully integrated copper miner and refiner linked directly to the electrification theme through the Malanjkhand project and its production of copper concentrates, cathodes and rods. It generated about ₹34.98b from manufacture and sale of copper products and carries a market value of roughly ₹469.64b.
Hindustan Copper is positioned within the copper shortage narrative, with mining and refining assets that feed power and AI hardware supply chains, while earnings are closely connected to the metal price. Investors gain focused exposure to that scarcity theme, although returns still depend on how one unseen pressure influences future margins.
That unseen pressure is exactly where your edge can come from, so scan the 2 key rewards and 1 important warning sign and see how Hindustan Copper's upsides compare with that squeeze.
BSE:513599 Revenue & Expenses Breakdown as at Oct 2026
Southern Copper (SCCO)
Southern Copper ties directly into the electrification and AI build out through its large copper mines and processing hubs, while still earning meaningful income from other metals and a coal unit. It generated about US$9.1b from Mexican open pit operations and US$6b from Peru, with another US$1.1b from the IMMSA unit, and carries a market value near US$173.3b.
Southern Copper gives investors a focused way to gain exposure to the copper shortage narrative, supported by long-life mines and in-house smelting and refining that serve power grids, EVs and data centers. However, the scale of its expansion plans has become the key debate around future returns.
https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/commodities/articles/top-3-copper-stocks-watch-111207955.html
Cleveland-Cliffs, one of the largest US steel producers, is undertaking a large-scale expansion of its production of grain-oriented electrical steel (GOES) at its Butler Works plant in Pennsylvania, at a cost of $200 million. This was reported by Construction Review
The project is being carried out with the support of the US Department of Energy (DOE), which has awarded a grant of $75 million. Work is scheduled to be completed in early 2028 (although the DOE’s official timetables indicate 2029). At the peak of construction, around 220 construction workers will be employed.
Key aspects and objectives of the project:
1) The modernisation will enable Butler Works to increase its production of GOES steel by up to 25 per cent. 2) Butler Works is the only manufacturer in the US of GOES steel, which is a key material used in the manufacture of transformer cores and power grid equipment. 3) The company will install four new induction reheating furnaces (manufactured in Warren, Ohio), which will replace two gas-fired furnaces. This will enable the process to be partially electrified, improve the quality of the steel, reduce losses and cut emissions during hot rolling.
The rapid growth in demand for transformers and the modernisation of the US power grid are driven by infrastructure upgrades, the addition of new generation capacity and the large-scale construction of data centres, which require hundreds of megawatts of electricity. This trend is driving investment across the entire supply chain: for example, Southwire has begun expanding its campus in Starkville (Mississippi) at a cost of over $256 million to increase its output of cable and wire products.
As reported by GMK Center, from 9 October, Cleveland-Cliffs is suspending part of its production capacity at the Stelco plant (Ontario, Canada) for an indefinite period. The decision is due to losses resulting from US trade tariffs and the market crisis. The cutbacks will affect 500 employees at the plant.
India’s steel ministry is unlikely to introduce new measures to curb cheap steel imports in the near term, despite requests from domestic steelmakers to raise import protection, according to a government source. India imported around 3.5 million tonnes of finished steel during April-August, up 29.5% year on year, with China accounting for 31.8% of total imports. A petition has reportedly sought an increase in the safeguard duty from the current 11.5% to above 20%, but the government is not considering a hike at present as domestic steel prices are already high. India had introduced safeguard duties on some steel products in December 2025 and also started an anti-dumping investigation into hot-rolled steel imports from China, Japan and Russia in June. Meanwhile, domestic steel prices have increased in recent weeks due to higher coking coal costs and stronger demand after the monsoon, with infrastructure and automotive demand showing improvement. Higher imports remain a key risk to domestic mills’ margins if import competition strengthens further.
India is preparing to double its coking coal output by 2030, especially to meet its steel manufacturing needs. While carbon emissions from coal use are well known, coal mining also produces methane emissions, which warrant early attention. If monitoring and abatement measures are not incorporated at the planning stage, it could lock in higher emissions in mining operations for decades.
Methane is a potent greenhouse gas and is formed in coal mines during the coalification process. It remains trapped within the coal seam and is released when mining disturbs or exposes the seam to the atmosphere. These emissions are called coal mine methane (CMM) and occur during multiple stages of the mining cycle, including extraction, drainage, and ventilation, as well as post-mining activities such as coal processing, storage, and transport. Coking coal mining is particularly methane-intensive, with around 50% higher methane intensity than non-coking coal.
When heated in the absence of air, coking coal converts into coke: a strong, porous material, low in ash and moisture and free of volatile matter. Coke’s use as a fuel and a reducing agent in steel production sets it apart from non-coking coal, which is primarily used for energy generation.
Why is India planning for more coking coal?
In the absence of good-quality domestically produced coking coal, India imports around 90% of the coking coal required by its steel sector, which needs low ash and sulphur content and caking properties. India’s domestic coking coal production is still falling short. It mined 66.8 million tonnes (MT) of raw coking coal in 2023-24, but only about 5.4 million tonnes was washed to the quality needed for steelmaking.
India has launched Mission Coking Coal to increase domestic production to around 140 MT by financial year (FY) 2030, up from 66 MT in financial year 2025. This increase is expected to support India’s proposed steelmaking capacity to rise from the current 200 million tonnes per annum (MTPA) to 300 MTPA by 2030.
India’s main steelmaking process is the conventional blast furnace-basic oxygen furnace (BF-BOF) route with coking coal as the key input. It accounts for around 62% of current steel production and around 59% of announced or under-construction production. Alternative steelmaking technologies that use other fuels like natural gas, green hydrogen, or scrap steel lower coking coal use in steel production but are not currently popular in the country. The BF-BOF process requires 770 kilogrammes (kg) of coking coal per tonne of crude steel. With 208 MTPA of BF-BOF capacity expected to come up in India, this would create an additional coking coal demand of 160 MTPA.
https://www.seaandjob.com/indias-coking-coal-push-needs-a-methane-plan/