Exclusive: China’s alumina output stood at 6.28 million mt in March, primary aluminium output at 3.35 million mt

SHANGHAI, Apr 9 (SMM)—China’s alumina output stood at 6.28 million mt in March. This included 6.07 million mt of metallurgical-grade alumina, with the daily output down 2.89% from February but up 11.75% on the year to 195,900 mt. Metallurgical-grade alumina output totalled 17.32 million mt in Q1, up 7.12% on a yearly basis.

As of early April, the operating capacity of metallurgical-grade alumina stood at 71.49 million mt/year. SMM sees output of metallurgical-grade alumina at 6.19 million mt in April (30 days), with the daily output rising slightly on the month at around 206,400 mt, as the GAluminium Group will bring new capacity online.

Aluminium

China’s primary aluminium output rose 10.2% year on year to 3.35 million mt in March (31 production days), showed an SMM survey.

Seven aluminium plants in Inner Mongolia conducted maintenance or reduced output in March due to local energy consumption restrictions, involving about 310,000 mt of annual capacity. Meanwhile, several plants in south-west China continued to raise operating capacity in March. As of early April, there was 39.44 million mt among 43.59 million mt per year of existing primary aluminium capacity in operation, while operating rates across Chinese primary aluminium producers stood at 90.5%. Daily output rose 200 mt from February to 107,900 mt. The proportion of aluminum water came in at 63.2%, up 3.9 percentage points month on month.

Guangxi Debao Baikuang Aluminum brought 100,000 mt of new capacity online earlier this week, Shanxian Hengkang Aluminium is likely to restart production in late April, and aluminium output in Inner Mongolia will continue to fall. Meanwhile, demand from construction aluminium extrusion producers has improved significantly after the Qingming holiday. Domestic aluminum social inventories are likely to shrink to 1.15 million mt at the end of April amid a high season.