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The Copper Supply Chain and KME's Role
The industry involved in the transformation of copper is a main link in the supply chain and KME is a worldwide leader in this segment (excluding copper wire and wire rod).
Copper, in its natural mineral form, goes through a series of production transformations before it reaches the end user.
Its supply chain can be represented in a simplified manner, as seen in the diagram below, which graphically shows the stages, the corresponding industries and relative products. The copper supply chain can be divided into two main areas:
- The actual production of copper (from mining of the mineral to the production of the cathode)
- its transformation into products (semi-finished) that can be used directly (ex. sanitary tubes) or further processed by the user industry and incorporated into products outside the copper supply chain.
The Transformation industry (simplified in the above diagram which only shows the KME manufacturing range) is a fundamental component in the chain, an essential junction and synergy point between copper products and the industries that use them.
It should be noted that it is also an important part of the entire chain, even from a technological and economical point of view, and its competitiveness is essential to the entire production system and its use.
KME has positioned itself in the Transformation of semi-finished products, in a position of absolute excellence in the sector on both a European and worldwide level.
RANGE OF PRODUCTS
KME: a complete and incomparable range of products. KME offers its customers a complete and incomparable range of products. Find out more in our Products section
SEMI-FINISHED COPPER PRODUCTS
With regard to production type and considering the amounts, copper wire accounts for almost half the production of semi-finished products.
Generally however, this is where the wire differentiates itself from the rest of the semi-finished industry by the specificity of its manufacturing organization.
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[Production EU15, IWCC]
But for other semi-finished products, upstream integration is more or less an exception and the cathodes, with the eventual addition of scrap or work remnants, are generally used for "semi-continuous" casting to obtain large dimension slabs or billets which are then sent for rolling and extruding/drawing.
