Antaike, the daughter company of the Chinese Government’s China Non-ferrous Metals Industry Association (CNMIA) has announced that their annual aluminium conference will be held in Kunming November 25-27. That’s exactly the same dates as the ARABAL conference.

Antaike’s conference is a difficult one to organise, because there are so many stakeholders involved. A few years ago, AZ China had some informal discussions with Antaike about cooperating for the conference. Out of those discussions (which came to nothing, as they didn’t want our help) it became clear that they needed to consult with the leaders of several aluminium companies, sponsors, organisers and other stakeholders, to gain agreement to a date. It’s often the case in China - hubris dictates that egos must be stroked, especially when SOEs (State Owned Enterprises) are involved.

The Antaike conference is always held in southern China, as it’s too cold in the north!

But since they were second into the public domain with the date, surely it wouldn’t have been too hard to select a different date? As it is, Antaike normally holds their conference overlapping a weekend, but this year have moved mid-week. Couldn’t they have spoken with the Arab Aluminium Association to check the dates?

It’s a case of two behemoths demanding attention, but for mine, ARABAL deserves the better attendance. The Arab industry represents the second largest production region, while Antaike represents the largest. ARABAL is of course heavily oriented towards the Arab aluminium sector, but the conference agenda clearly has a global view, with topics including the dynamics of the current global bauxite and alumina markets. Antaike’s papers are usually Party-approved rehashes of policy, or ridiculous assertions, such as one foreign speaker’s claim that China would be importing 4-5 million tonnes of metal by 2015 (in the 2011 conference). ARABAL usually has a heavy weighting of industry leaders (which means you get the corporate view which tells you little), but Antaike gets mostly traders and lightweights who have no views.

The two organising groups have structural differences that might have had something to do with the clash of dates. ARABAL’s organising committee has representatives from all the smelters in the region. Antaike is a for-profit company run indirectly by CNMIA, and holds multiple conferences throughout the year, including for copper, nickel and cobalt.

But both conferences will suffer from the competition against each other. None of us punters will be able to get to both, given the time zones and travel times. If they genuinely had something to offer us, they would have gone to some lengths to ensure we don’t have to make the choice of conferences. Few of us can afford to attend more than 1 conference per year anyway, and while our time is more important, the cost is also a factor, and on that score, Antaike wins. But it’s not a simple matter of cost, but of bang for the buck. If you are a trader in the China market, Antaike is worth it - not for the conference but for the meetings outside and around the conference. If you are a global player, ARABAL offers a cheaper alternative to the same thing than the upcoming Metal Bulletin conference, which is asking US$2400+ for a conference that runs 1.5 days.

Yes, it’s true I am not an unbiased observer, since AZ China had its own conference back in May. But we spent considerable time checking the calendar to ensure we don’t clash with the likes of CRU or Harbor or AMM.