Shipping Industry Insights – The Blue Denmark

Despite Denmark’s small size, this country has one of the world’s largest shipping industry. It is a global maritime industry leader with long-standing activities and advanced technologies. There is a term used for all of the maritime companies and professions in Denmark – The Blue Denmark.

The Blue Denmark

This term includes shipping companies, ship yards, industry suppliers, off-shore companies, educational institutions and authorities. The core of The Blue Denmark is formed by 100 Danish companies along with shipyards and maritime suppliers. Denmark transports 10% of the total world trade (approximately 1 billion tonnes).

China and The Blue Denmark

In 1974 the Chinese-Danish agreement on Maritime Transport was signed signed in Beijing by the Chinese Vice Premier Deng Xiaoping and Danish Prime Minister Paul Hartling. On 10, October 2014 Chinese and Danish representatives celebrated 40 years of official maritime cooperation. Nowadays, China as the largest shipbuilding nation is even more important for Danish suppliers and Danish ship owners.

Environmentally friendly shipping

Among the leading countries in the world, Denmark is well-known for environmentally friendly shipbuilding and repairing. Shipping is already a climate-friendly way of transport, but Danish companies together within The Blue Denmark have been trying to make even greater effort to protect the climate and environment. The biggest Danish company A.P. Moller-Maersk Ltd with others created a forum “Green Ship of the Future”. Involved members are trying to reduce CO2 emissions and pollution from ships. The vision of this forum is to develop energy-efficient technologies that can be achieved by connecting specific research. (more information)

Shanghai Metal Corporation offers customers shipbuilding steel used in maritime industry, or various types of shipping containers as open top offshore container. For more information visit our website or send us inquiry. Download a new application by scanning QR code below and follow us on Social Media.

    

Silvia M.//SMC Editor

Read more articles written by this author here.

Credits: dma.dk, greenship.org, cphpost.dk, scmp.com, danishmaritimedays.com, investindk.com, http://worldcareers.dk/

The Sharing Economy

In today’s society where the pressure of environmental sustainability is growing, the problems of overproduction and overconsumption are becoming more and more important. To answer this problem, a new system of economy begins to appear : “The Sharing Economy”, also called “The Collaborative Economy”.  Just like what it is called, this system is all about sharing goods and services between different people and organisations. In other words, rather than owning a product or service, you give other people access to it and share it. This sharing system has different category of example. Let us take you to discover some of the famous one.

Real Estate

Home Exchange

You’d like to go for vacation but your budget is limited. Fortunately there is new way to find a cheap accommodation ! The Home Exchange system allows you to swap your home for a set period of time, with no monetary exchange ! Plus there is the internet that has made the process of finding a swap easier.

Barter

Barter is a system of exchange by which goods or services are directly exchanged for other goods or services without using a medium of exchange, such as money.

The “Clothing Swap” is THE magical solution for those who love experiencing with new looks ! You can exchange your no-longer used clothing for clothing that you’d love to have.

Transportation

Carsharing

This system is very convenient for those who only need an occasional use of vehicle, as well as others who would love to get a taste of a new and different type of car.

Bicycle Sharing System

This service lets people to borrow a bike from a bicycle station and return it to any other stations located in the city. This system are often inexpensive, which encourages their use as transportation. Many systems have a smartphone mapping apps which shows how how many bikes and how many open parking are available at each station, increasing convenience for users.

Shanghai Metal Corporation has a vast range of bicycle dock. We offer personalized service and can accomodate any number of parking place in one bicycle dock. Every product that we provide is rust resistant, weather resistant, and theft-proof. To learn more, please visit our website or send us your inquiry. Our English speaking staff will guide you to find your wanted product with the best quality and price. Don’t forget to follow us on Social Media.

For more information : Wikipedia
Pictures from : Google Image

    

Ayu P.//SMC editor

 

Chinese controversial artist and his metal art

Ai Weiwei, a Chinese contemporary artist, born in Beijing, China is active in sculpture, installation, architecture, photography, film but also in social, political and cultural criticism. He collaborated with Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron as the artistic consultant on the Beijing National Stadium for the 2008 Olympics.

Inspiration in metal

Ai Weiwei created a massive metal bird wing. He wanted to represent freedom but the installation is immobilized like a trapped animal inside one of America’s most notorious prisons – Alcatraz. It can be only seen from above. Visitors are placed as an authority but they still don’t have full access to the installation.

It weights more than five tons and the whole sculpture is earthbound. The wings are made from reflective solar cookers and kettles used in Tibet. His artwork is kind of a word play, merging together the material quality – metal and concept of freedom.

Inspiration in bicycles

Cycling is one of the most common forms of transportation in China. However, Ai Weiwei removed their primary function and made the static. There isn’t anymore freedom associated with cycling and bicycles are piled together forming a labyrinth that keeps them immobile and useless. The visitor can stand below the installation and observe details from new angle and gain a new perspective on the bicycles.

In Shanghai Metal Corporation we follow the new trends and offers our customers high quality metal and steel products. For more details please visit our website our send us inquiry.  Our English speaking staff will be more than glad to help you. You could also follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or LindkedIn. If you have a smart phone or tablet, download our new application by scanning QR code below.

Silvia M.//SMC Editor

You can find more articles by this author here.

Credits and pictures : wikipedia.com, inhabitat.com, aiweiwei.com, googleimages

#BuildingValueAcrossTheGlobe

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Living on the Edge of a Floating House

In today’s world people are taking construction business the dew dimensions. The ultimate extremes seem to be in space and underwater but another setting of prefab architecture is on the surface of water.

The world has many examples of beautiful floating architecture. A floating house has basically two features that are superior compared to their on-the-ground counterparts.

First, floating houses offer safety in areas suffering from floods. An article on BBC tells about an idea of floating houses saving people from UK’s floods. Besides residence, also school buildings have been converted into floatable forms. The concept of floating school buildings has already been applied in Nigeria.

Second, a floating building also operates as a transportation method. An example has been set in Finland, where sauna rafts have become a sort of a summer trend. Sauna rafts are basically rafts that are equipped with motor engines that move the raft in a moderate speed. Inhabitat has written more about the design of Finnish sauna rafts that also include a patio and hammocks. Formerly Shanghai Metal Corporation wrote an article about container saunas and container swimming pools, but this solution has both of them in one package.

For construction businesses the environment brings challenges as we’ve seen in case of floating architecture. In large major projects it’s the pioneers of the business who define the standards for quality. Shanghai Metal Corporation is one of them, not only because of the width of its business that encompasses prefab building, containers and steel building but also due its success in executing successful projects including some of the largest steel bridges in China.

For information about our construction projects, please visit our website. Please also follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn.

#BuildingValueAcrossTheGlobe

Tuomas P. // SMC Editor

Pictures and original articles: BBC, The Huffington Post, Inhabitat, Inhabitat, Inhabitat, Inhabitat, Inhabitat

Unlimited Possibilities With a Limited Negative Impact

More than ever we faced limited resources on the earth. We can think about foods, fresh water and gas reserve. Growing every year is now more and more difficult to do, especially in the raw mineral and non-renewable energy sectors. In fact we need to use a lot non-renewable energy to extract limited raw minerals at the end the cost for the planet is high and irreversible.

Some metal industries are now aware about this problem and they start to find a way to limit their negative impact on the planet. Studies already proved that we can recycle carbon steel scarp without any limit of time. Even if this resource is limited on the earth we can recast infinitely without reducing the quality of the product. Therefore, this product becoming more and more attractive in a long term views in our economy because it can be connected with several projects. So now the challenge is to rethink about how to use each scrap metal resource.

In another perspective, recycle iron significantly reduced our consumption of non-renewable energy, and our CO2 emissions. Indeed, the CO2 emission is limited by the carbon steel scrap transportation to the recycling shop, the overall impact is nothing compare to the extraction process.

Shanghai Metal Corporation is a leader in the carbon steel material and equipment on the market with the highest quality standard and an affordable pricing. More information on our carbon steel products, visit our website here. Be sure to join the conversation in our LinkedIn group, Facebook, Twitter and instagram. You can also scan the QR code below to connect with us.

You can also find more articles by our team at SMC right below.

The new pipe line way for the gas industry.

A potential solution about the body car impasse

The best steel for the best dish!

Source: Epa.gov , stlpipesupply

Pictures sources: dmaeuropa,metro,franklinmetaltrading

JonathanT.//SMC editor

 

 

Copper Powers Green Transportation that Leads to Progressive Economic Impacts

In today’s society, transportation methods are finding ways to make altercations to manufacturing processes in order to become more sustainable and reduce their environmental footprint. Back in 1948, the average family car contained only 55 copper wires, amounting to a length of 150 feet. Fast forward to the present day and you will see more that 50 pounds of copper in a typical American made automobile. Today’s luxury cars contain some 1,500 copper wires, totaling to about one mile in length. This change shows the progress being made in the technology and manufacturing sector in order to but more fuel efficient cars on the road.

The Toyota Prius offers an EPA-estimated 50 mpg city and highway combined. According to fueleconomy.gov, compared to the average car, Prius could have saved an estimated 1.445 billion gallons of gas in the U.S. since 2000.

For example, the Toyota Prius, a full hybrid electronic mid-size hatchback, relies on copper wiring to power its nickel based batteries as well as computer chips to power the car and cut carbon emissions. Many other vehicles are catching on to the trend and future generations oh hybrid and electronic cars plan on using even more copper. Electronic motors with copper rotors are shown to offer advantages over other types of materials, including increased efficiency, smaller size, and lower operating costs.

Following the examples of New York and San Francisco, Boston has implemented sustainability plans to make all taxis hybrids by 2015.

 It’s not just consumer cars – alternative forms of transportation, from buses to electronic trolleys and subways use an average of 2,300 pounds of copper apiece. Rare metals like copper are proven to be critical to our economy, green energy and technology. New high-speed trains with electronic traction engines use double the amount of copper than traditional electron trains. The International Copper Study Group revealed that the new engines use from 3 to 4 tons of copper. By supplying more high-speed trains to the marketplace, economies around the world as a whole will benefit. For example, as emerging economies experience an increasing middle class population, the demand for labor in the construction sector will increase. Once high-speed rail travel is put into place, cities across the globe will see lower highway congestion, lower emissions, and lower trade deficits stemming from less imports of crude oil.

Shanghai Metal Corporation offers copper alloys that are used in supplying overhead cables for high-speed trains. Visit our website for more information of our full line of products and on our commitment to building value across the globe. Be sure to join the conversation on our LinkedIn group, Facebook, and Twitter.

Sources: Copper Matters, The International Copper Study Group, Granite Investment Advisors, USA Today, Toyota.com

By: Kristie K. // SMC Editor 

Aluminum Sector Analysis in Brazil

Growing demand for aluminum in Brazil is powered by the packaging, transportation and construction industries. Aluminum foil is used in flexible packaging and many consumer products are making the transition in packaging material, leading to greater demand across the world.  Increases in demand for transportation and construction needs are powered by the 2014 World Cup and the Rio 2016 Summer Olympics, where extrusion-related programs include stadiums and airports. The Brazilian Aluminum Association (ABAL) technical director Arton Filletti says “We also see great potential for extrusions in other modes of people transport, such as railways, urban surface trains and subways.” He also sees potential in the shipping and offshore industry.

Four industries account for three fourths of aluminum consumption in Brazil: packing, transportation, construction and electricity.

 

Aluminum is on the rise in the auto industry and has plenty of room for growth in Brazil. In 2013, vehicles produced domestically have average aluminum content per vehicle at around 110 pounds. In leading markets such as the U.S. and Europe, average aluminum content per vehicle exceeds 300 pounds. Inovar Auto is a government program established to boost vehicle technology innovation should raise demand by the industry as well as tax breaks for cars that reach a set level of energy efficiency. Demand should increase for aluminum since it is known to make cars lighter and run more efficiently.

Last year, Brazil dropped to 8th from 6th largest producer globally as production of primary aluminum fell 9.2%. The main barrier is poor competitiveness in the cost of electricity. The loss of competitiveness will mean that Brazil will have to become a net importer of aluminum. The People’s Republic of China remains at the top of the list and Shanghai Metal Corporations is a leading manufacturer in Aluminum sheets and plates committed to providing value-added quality products with competitive pricing and prompt delivery. Our group of competent engineers develops and improves our products using specially design and advanced equipment to meet the special needs to our clients. To find out more about our wide variety of products check out our website here.

Sources: The Brazilian Aluminum Association (ABAL), Bain & Company

Kristie K.//SMC Editor