Purchasers fear rising material costs; General Motors, Valeo and Bosch plan big increases in component sourcing from countries in the East.(News)

Automotive News Europe, April, 2007

Byline: Edmund Chew

Automotive purchasing executives carried two major challenges into 2007 from 2006: stubbornly high raw materials costs, especially for steel and nickel, and the difficulty of managing an increasingly extended supply chain.

At its March 19 close of $47,000 (about [euro]35,330) per metric ton on the London Metal Exchange, nickel, the essential element in stainless steel, is up more than 200 percent from a year earlier. And at $560-$580 a metric ton, the spot price of hot-rolled sheet steel for automotive applications is down from a peak of $780 in 2004, but still is up 300 percent over 2001.

Spot prices for aluminum and for the precious metals used in catalytic converters and diesel particulate filters also are higher. ...

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