By Nirmal Bang - The euro zone's manufacturing sector had its best month in 2-1/2 years in February but the dominant service sector activity expanded at a slower pace than expected, the CIPS/Marking purchasing managers' index showed today. - The Metals Activity Report from the Metals Service Center Institute shows that January shipments of aluminum from US metals service centers went up by 2.9% from January 2009.US metals service centers shipped 93,600 tons of aluminum in January and ended the month with 254,400 tons of the metal on hand, equal to a 2.7 month supply at current shipping rates. - Pasadena Refining shut down a crude silane unit at the 100,000 barrel-perday (pbd) Texas refinery on Thursday for maintenance, a filing with state environmental regulators showed. - Workers at Total's six French oil refineries extended their strike action on Thursday and some petrol stations could now run out of fuel in the next few days, the CGT union said.

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