Provides an ideal focal point for all those involved in the zinc supply chain to take stock of the new market scenario and the opportunities it offers and the challenges that remain.

Zinc’s meteoric rise in prices to over $4,000 per tonne in 2006 appears to have been shortlived, with values tumbling back to $2,500 in 2007. And while this may have dulled the metal’s attraction as a speculative investment, those involved in the making and using of the zinc – producers and their zinc customers alike – are no doubt secretly heaving a sigh of relief. At $4,000 plus, though zinc consumption continued to rise, substitution was being talked of and was perilously close to becoming a reality. At today’s price levels, while there are pressure points and bottlenecks along the supply chain, it would seem zinc is approaching an equilibrium price allowing the required capital investment in new capacity that is needed to meet healthy and growing demand – notably from the galvanizing business – but not so high as to damage this consumption base.

Metal Bulletin’s 12^th Zinc & its Markets Seminar will provide an ideal focal point for all those involved in the zinc supply chain to take stock of the new market scenario and the opportunities it offers and the challenges that remain. Brussels is located at the heart of northern Europe’s zinc producing, processing and using sectors, and Belgium is the historic home of Umicore which, along with Zinifex, provided the asset base for the creation in 2007 of  a new 1m tpy zinc metal powerhouse, Nyrstar. As Lead Sponsor of the Seminar, Nyrstar will also be giving delegates the opportunity to visit the company’s 270,000 tpy Balen smelter.

Join us in Brussels to discuss key issues facing the global zinc business and implications for you and your company, and to meet with over 200 international zinc industry executives. The 12^th Zinc & its Markets Seminar will examine:

• Growing mine supply – how much, when and where?
• The smelter bottleneck – can capacity rise quickly enough?
• Profit margins in mining and smelting – have we left the “bad old day” behind?
• Restructuring and leadership in the industry – strategies for success
• Maintaining demand growth – in both older and newer economies
• Applications research and product development – is enough being done?
• The China syndrome – economics, politics and trade balances
• Electricity, emissions and the environment– how where does zinc stand?
• Zinc recycling – key to zinc’s eco-profile but is is a sustainable business?