Ministry of Industry and Information Technology: China's aluminum industry maintained stable operation in the first half of 2020, and the price of smelting products stabilized and rebounded.

SMM News: in the first half of 2020, China's aluminum industry maintained a stable operation, smelting product prices stabilized and rebounded, aluminum ingot inventory continued to decline, the decline in industry efficiency significantly narrowed.

First, the steady growth of production, aluminum ingot inventory continues to decline. From January to June, the output of electrolytic aluminum and aluminum materials was 17.89 million tons and 26.46 million tons respectively, up 1.7 percent and 7.8 percent respectively over the same period last year. Alumina production was 35.2 million tons, down 5.1 percent from the same period last year, or 2.1 percentage points lower than in the first quarter. According to industry analysts, the social inventory of aluminum ingots in late July was 688000 tons, close to the pre-Spring Festival level and down 60 per cent from the year's high.

Second, prices have hit bottom and rebounded, and the decline in efficiency has narrowed. Since April, the price of aluminium smelting products has rebounded from the previous month, with the spot price of aluminum averaging 13823 yuan per ton in June, up 12.1 per cent from the March average. From January to June, the profit of the aluminum industry was 12.86 billion yuan, down 32.7 percent from the same period last year. In particular, the profit realized in June was 5.98 billion yuan, an increase of 29.7 percent over the same period last year. The benefit decline in the first half of the year was 19.8 percentage points lower than that in January-May. Among them, the profits of bauxite mining, aluminum smelting and aluminum Calendering reached 20 million yuan, 4.48 billion yuan and 8.36 billion yuan from January to June, respectively. The year-on-year decline was 90.9%, 54.7% and 7.2% respectively, and the profit decline in smelting and aluminum calender processing was 25.3% and 18.2% lower than that in January-May, respectively.

Third, the import of bauxite and smelting products increased compared with the same period last year, and the export of aluminum expanded. From January to June, imported bauxite (physical volume) was 58.31 million tons, an increase of 8.6 percent over the same period last year; affected by the flexible production of domestic alumina enterprises and the weakness of aluminum prices inside and outside, alumina and unwrought aluminum imported 1.939 million tons, 629000 tons, up 501.3% and 591.1% over the same period last year; imported aluminum scrap was 389000 tons, down 53.9% from the same period last year. From January to June, aluminum exports were 2.244 million tons, down 15.1 percent from the same period last year, or 2.9 percent more than in the first quarter.

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