Driving aluminium

Ford has reached an agreement with Alcoa that will expand its use of aluminium in the car maker’s F-150 utility and other vehicles, the Wall Street Journal reports.

That is a fillip for the lightweight metal, breaking into an industry that has long favoured steel.

According to WSJ Alcoa’s aluminium casting technology will let the automaker make more parts, such as fenders, using the metal.

For Ford, the paper writes, the deal expands an already more aggressive embrace of aluminium than its rivals.

PR quits

The world’s largest public relations firm, Edelman, has decided that coal companies and climate change deniers are too risky to its own reputation.

The exclusion of coal and climate denial, as well as fake front groups that oppose action on global warming, is outlined in internal communications obtained by The Guardian and confirmed by company executives.

It signals an important shift in a company that has played a critical role in shaping public opinion in the US and globally about climate change.

The Guardian says the firm’s new approach follows a two-year review of Edelman’s operations aimed at protecting what the company calls its “licence to lead”, following negative publicity about its work on behalf of the oil lobby and pipeline companies.

Price pain felt

Three leading global thermal coal price benchmarks have fallen below levels last seen during the global financial crisis of 2008-2009, The Economic Times reports.

Those prices have been knocked by a sharp slowdown in demand, especially in Asia, and with mining output remaining stubbornly high.

Europe's Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Antwerp, Australia's Newcastle and South Africa's Richards Bay benchmarks have dropped to between $51 and $58 per tonne, or about 60 percent off their last peak in 2011 and 75 percent below all-time highs hit in 2008.

What the paper calls the “unprecedented slump” has called BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto’s share price to lose about half their share value since 2011.