Aluminium sheet, strip and foil operating rates up in Dec

Recently, the "Weili Ambition" vessel carrying 320,000 tonnes of Guinean bauxite berthed at the West Port Area of Yantai Port in Shandong Port for unloading operations, setting a new record for single-vessel bauxite handling at Yantai Port. During the vessel's port operations, Yantai Port formulated a dedicated-vessel operation plan and seamlessly connected all business processes to minimize non-productive downtime. In recent years, Yantai Port has built a two-way China–Africa logistics corridor, under which cargo ships unload African bauxite at the port and then use the empty space on their return voyages to ship machinery, vehicles, and other production and living supplies to Africa.

The Yunnan Provincial Department of Finance and the Yunnan Provincial Department of Industry and Information Technology recently jointly issued the "Measures for the Management of Yunnan Provincial Special Funds for New-Type Industrialization" (hereinafter referred to as the "Measures"), consolidating provincial special funds for new-type industrialization to focus support on the development of key industrial chains including deep processing of nonferrous metals, new rare and precious metal materials, new energy batteries and fine phosphorus chemicals, green food and traditional Chinese medicinal materials, and the digital industry. The Measures specify that deep processing of nonferrous metals should focus on aluminum and copper, new rare and precious metal materials on indium, germanium, and platinum, new energy batteries and fine phosphorus chemicals on the efficient and high-value use of phosphorus resources, and the digital industry on being led by the digital information corridor with the electronic information manufacturing industry as the mainstay, with key support for extending, supplementing, and strengthening industrial chains.

Guinea's Ministry of Mines and Geology has held discussions with the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) and the Export-Import Bank of the United States on supporting the Compagnie des Bauxites de Guinée (CBG) in building an alumina refinery, with CBG planning to start construction by the end of 2026. The Guinean government plans to build 5–6 alumina refineries with total annual capacity of about 7 million tonnes by 2030, in order to drive the transformation of bauxite from export to local processing.