Alumina plants back in action as natural gas supply resumes

SHANGHAI, Jan 24 (SMM)－ Roasting operations have resumed at alumina plants in Henan, Shanxi and Inner Mongolia provinces affected by natural gas shortage last month, SMM learned.

A total of 1.86 million mt of annual capacity across seven alumina plants have been affected since December 2017 as Henan and Shanxi were required to use natural gas to supply heating instead of coal gas for the first time this year.

The natural gas shortage affected the roasting process, which means the intermediate product aluminium hydroxide was in normal production.

Now that the natural gas supply has resumed, these plants would expedite the roasting process and transform aluminium hydroxide into alumina.

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