CRU Group is a privately-owned business intelligence company. The Group focuses on the global mining, metals and fertilizers markets. It provides consultancy, business analysis, news, data and conferences services. The company’s main aim is to help its clients make profitable business decisions.

Global Coverage

CRU's headquarters are in central London. The company also has regional offices in:

• Beijing – China
• Santiago – Chile
• Mumbai – India
• Pittsburgh - United States
• Sydney - Australia

CRU employs over 200 people: economists, management consultants, engineers, metallurgists, geologists, chemists and journalists.

History

CRU was founded in 1967 by Chairman Robert Perlman, and his colleague John Horam

John Horam

John Rhodes Horam is a politician in the United Kingdom. He sat in the House of Commons for two separate periods between 1970 and 2010, as a member of three different political parties, latterly as the Conservative Party Member of Parliament for Orpington until 2010.-Early life:Horam was born in...

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The company was originally named Commodities Research Unit. It was changed to CRU as the company expanded their offering to include more than just research products.

Over the years CRU have made a number of acquisitions including:

• 1986 - British Sulphur Consultants
• 1996 - Resource Strategies Inc
• 2006 - Commodity Metals Management Company

Commodities

CRU specializes in producing short-, medium-, and long-term analysis for major commodities including:

• Aluminium
  Aluminium
  Aluminium or aluminum is a silvery white member of the boron group of chemical elements. It has the symbol Al, and its atomic number is 13. It is not soluble in water under normal circumstances....
  
  
• Alumina
• Bauxite
  Bauxite
  Bauxite is an aluminium ore and is the main source of aluminium. This form of rock consists mostly of the minerals gibbsite Al3, boehmite γ-AlO, and diaspore α-AlO, in a mixture with the two iron oxides goethite and hematite, the clay mineral kaolinite, and small amounts of anatase TiO2...
  
  
• Ferromanganese
  Ferromanganese
  Ferromanganese, a ferroalloy with high content of manganese, is made by heating a mixture of the oxides MnO2 and Fe2O3, with carbon, usually as coal and coke, in either a blast furnace or an electric arc furnace-type system, called a submerged arc furnace. The oxides undergo carbothermal reduction...
  
  
• Ferrosilicon
  Ferrosilicon
  Ferrosilicon, or ferrosilicium, is a ferroalloy, an alloy of iron and silicon with between 15% and 90% silicon. It contains a high proportion of iron silicides. Its melting point is about 1200 °C to 1250 °C with a boiling point of 2355 °C...
  
  
• Manganese
  Manganese
  Manganese is a chemical element, designated by the symbol Mn. It has the atomic number 25. It is found as a free element in nature , and in many minerals...
  
  
• Silicon
  Silicon
  Silicon is a chemical element with the symbol Si and atomic number 14. A tetravalent metalloid, it is less reactive than its chemical analog carbon, the nonmetal directly above it in the periodic table, but more reactive than germanium, the metalloid directly below it in the table...
  
  
• Carbon Steel (Billet, Crude, Longs, Pipes and Tubes, Plate, Sheet, Slab)
• Copper
  Copper
  Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu and atomic number 29. It is a ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. Pure copper is soft and malleable; an exposed surface has a reddish-orange tarnish...
  
  
• Ferrochrome
  Ferrochrome
  Ferrochrome is an alloy of chromium and iron containing between 50% and 70% chromium.The ferrochrome is produced by electric arc melting of chromite, an iron magnesium chromium oxide and the most important chromium ore. Most of the world's ferrochrome is produced in South Africa, Kazakhstan and...
  
  
• Lead
  Lead
  Lead is a main-group element in the carbon group with the symbol Pb and atomic number 82. Lead is a soft, malleable poor metal. It is also counted as one of the heavy metals. Metallic lead has a bluish-white color after being freshly cut, but it soon tarnishes to a dull grayish color when exposed...
  
  
• Cobalt
  Cobalt
  Cobalt is a chemical element with symbol Co and atomic number 27. It is found naturally only in chemically combined form. The free element, produced by reductive smelting, is a hard, lustrous, silver-gray metal....
  
  
• Uranium
  Uranium
  Uranium is a silvery-white metallic chemical element in the actinide series of the periodic table, with atomic number 92. It is assigned the chemical symbol U. A uranium atom has 92 protons and 92 electrons, of which 6 are valence electrons...
  
  
• Nickel
  Nickel
  Nickel is a chemical element with the chemical symbol Ni and atomic number 28. It is a silvery-white lustrous metal with a slight golden tinge. Nickel belongs to the transition metals and is hard and ductile...
  
  
• Nitrogen
  Nitrogen
  Nitrogen is a chemical element that has the symbol N, atomic number of 7 and atomic mass 14.00674 u. Elemental nitrogen is a colorless, odorless, tasteless, and mostly inert diatomic gas at standard conditions, constituting 78.08% by volume of Earth's atmosphere...
  
  
• Ammonia
  Ammonia
  Ammonia is a compound of nitrogen and hydrogen with the formula . It is a colourless gas with a characteristic pungent odour. Ammonia contributes significantly to the nutritional needs of terrestrial organisms by serving as a precursor to food and fertilizers. Ammonia, either directly or...
  
  
• UAN
  UAN
  UAN is a solution of urea and ammonium nitrate in water used as a fertilizer. The combination of urea and ammonium nitrate has an extremely low critical relative humidity and can therefore only be used in liquid fertilizers...
  
  
• Urea
  Urea
  Urea or carbamide is an organic compound with the chemical formula CO2. The molecule has two —NH2 groups joined by a carbonyl functional group....
  
  
• Phosphates
• Phosphate Rock
• Potash
  Potash
  Potash is the common name for various mined and manufactured salts that contain potassium in water-soluble form. In some rare cases, potash can be formed with traces of organic materials such as plant remains, and this was the major historical source for it before the industrial era...
  
  
• Gold
  Gold
  Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au and an atomic number of 79. Gold is a dense, soft, shiny, malleable and ductile metal. Pure gold has a bright yellow color and luster traditionally considered attractive, which it maintains without oxidizing in air or water. Chemically, gold is a...
  
  
• Silver
  Silver
  Silver is a metallic chemical element with the chemical symbol Ag and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it has the highest electrical conductivity of any element and the highest thermal conductivity of any metal...
  
  
• Stainless Steel
  Stainless steel
  In metallurgy, stainless steel, also known as inox steel or inox from French "inoxydable", is defined as a steel alloy with a minimum of 10.5 or 11% chromium content by mass....
  
  
• Coking Coal
• Iron Ore
• Metallics
• Metallurgical Coke
• Sulphur
• Sulphuric Acid
• Tin
  Tin
  Tin is a chemical element with the symbol Sn and atomic number 50. It is a main group metal in group 14 of the periodic table. Tin shows chemical similarity to both neighboring group 14 elements, germanium and lead and has two possible oxidation states, +2 and the slightly more stable +4...
  
  
• Wire and Cable
• Zinc
  Zinc
  Zinc , or spelter , is a metallic chemical element; it has the symbol Zn and atomic number 30. It is the first element in group 12 of the periodic table. Zinc is, in some respects, chemically similar to magnesium, because its ion is of similar size and its only common oxidation state is +2...
  
  

They also produce global conferences and offer consulting services.

CRU also studies the relationships between commodities, seeing the whole industry and not simply individual segments, which form a vital part of them helping their clients make profitable business decisions.