Nov alumina output up 6.7% YoY

SHANGHAI, Dec 7 (SMM) – China produced some 6.08 million mt of alumina in November, up 6.7% from a year ago, with average daily output at 203,000 mt, 4.1% higher on the month. In January-November, China’s alumina output totalled 64.3 million mt, 2.3% higher than the same period last year.

New, expanded capacity in Shanxi and Henan provinces, as well as resumption after maintenance in Guizhou and Shanxi accounted for the increase. Eased supply tightness of raw materials in Shanxi also buoyed the production. 

In November, maintenance across alumina refineries, electric power plants, and baking furnaces in Shanxi lowered output of the region. In Guizhou, visit of environmental inspection team affected production at some plants; tight supplies of bauxite also deterred operation at mills. Moreover, pollution weather curtailed production of refineries in Zhengzhou of Henan, and environmental restrictions limited production in Shandong province last month.  

SMM expects average daily output of alumina in December to drop to 199,000 mt, due to production cuts across refineries in Henan. This is estimated to generate 6.17 million mt of alumina output for December.

China produced nearly 2.96 million mt of primary aluminium in November, up 1.8% from a year ago. However, daily average production in November fell 1.8% from that in October, and stood at 99,000 mt. 

By the end of November, there was about 36 million mt of primary aluminium capacity in operation across China, up 645,000 mt from November 2017. Operating rates dipped 2.9 percentage points month on month to 85.7% in November. 

Losses across aluminium smelters resulted in their capacity cuts, at around 2.3 million mt currently. There is another 460,000 mt of capacity facing cutbacks. New capacity commissioned at slower paces, with expanded capacity in Inner Mongolia, Guangxi, and Yunnan areas coming in at smaller scales than expected.  

In December, old capacity will continue to be cut, faster than the operation of new capacity. SMM expects China’s operating capacity to dip to 35.8 million mt in December; output of primary aluminium will register 3.04 million mt, up 1.3% from December 2017.