What's Happening in High-Tech Supply Chains
Staff -- Purchasing, 2/3/2005
- Comcast, the nation's largest cable-TV operator, is making an ambitious push into the phone business. Comcast plans to market an Internet-based phone service to 15 million homes by the end of 2005 and to practically all 40 million of the households that have access to its systems within 18 months. The company hopes to have eight million phone subscribers within five years, or 20% of the homes its cable lines pass by.
- Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) will need to pump more oil than expected during the northern winter because of supply problems outside the cartel, says the International Energy Agency (IEA). Demand for OPEC oil will be 500,000 barrels per day higher, at 28.6 million, in the first quarter, as oil field disruptions in North America and the North Sea reduce non- OPEC supply, the IEA said. Lower-than-expected growth in non- OPEC production has helped tighten world oil supply, already constrained by rapid demand growth in the United States and China. The IEA also lifted its forecast on OPEC supply by 300,000 bpd for the second quarter, when demand usually ebbs.
- Coated paper grades were the strongest paper grade in 2004 with consumption up 9% in North America. That's why the 2004 year-end $60/metric ton price increase on coated free sheet appears to be holding. Major coated paper producers had customers on allocation during the seasonally busy fourth quarter.
- Purchasing of electronic chemicals, gases and materials will show just 7.7% growth in 2005. Revenue increased a projected 22.2% to $13 billion in 2004, from $10.6 billion in 2003. But sales will only rise to $14 billion in 2005, says the Information Network, a market researcher. The revenue-growth slowdown is forecast as the result of the expected end to the three-year upturn in the semiconductor market.
- Platinum supplies will likely outpace demand in 2005 for the first time in six years, metals refiner Johnson Matthey forecasts. For 2004, platinum demand was projected to grow by less than 1%—with supply and demand very close to balance. But growth in platinum demand for industrial applications will slow in 2005 while supplies will expand more rapidly than in 2004. "This will lead to a slightly softer platinum price, in the range of $760 to $880 per ounce for the next six months."
- German powder-metal components manufacturer Sinterstahl is coming to the U.S. The company has agreed to buy a powder-metal parts manufacturing operation in Dayton, Ohio, from automotive parts supplier Federal-Mogul.
Talkback
Related Content
Related Content
Sponsored Links
View All Blogs
Now Playing:
