SHANGHAI, Feb 13 (SMM) – Overall operating rates in China’s secondary aluminium industry is estimated to fall to a record low of 33% in February, on the back of 7-15 days of delay in production resumption and the slow return of workers and downstream demand. 

The impact of a coronavirus outbreak is expected to delay the post-holiday resumption of most secondary aluminium producers till February 18. Only a handful of major producers had resumed operations as of February 10. 

Chinese secondary aluminium producers scaled back operations in January due to a holiday lull. Large-scale producers mostly shut down for the Chinese New Year holiday after January 20, while medium-scale and small plants started to halt production between January 10-15.  

An SMM survey showed that operating rates across secondary aluminium producers in China fell to 41.8% in January. This was down 24.2 percentage points on the month and 13 percentage points on the year.

The average number of days for producers in normal operations stood below 20 in January. This, coupled with frontloading downstream demand before the CNY holiday, kept the overall operating rate in January below two-thirds of the normal level.