The Dunkerque Smelter: Is Rio Tinto Wrong Again?
Reports that Rio Tinto agreed to sell the Dunkerque plant, the largest aluminium smelter in Europe, located in northern France,...
Features
The Promised Road: China’s Aluminum Industry in 2018 (Part 3)
With China gearing up for the lunar new year, the good news is that the air quality has improved significantly this winter, many calling this the “brightest” winter in the last five years. Although the favorable weather has played a part, the...
Why Section 232 Sanctions May Do the U.S. Aluminium Sector More Harm than Good
Late last week the United States Commerce Department delivered to President Donald Trump the much-anticipated results of its Section 232...
Steep Coal Costs Blunt Indian Aluminium Makers’ Edge
Indian aluminium producers’ hope to harvest gains from resilient LME (London Metal Exchange) prices and smelter capacity shutdowns in China...
Events
Aluminium Combines Now: While ALRO Flourishes, KAP Flounders
While seemingly very different, Romania’s ALRO and Montenegro’s KAP – Kombinat Aluminijuma Podgorica – share one key number: $570 million. For ALRO, that is the amount of investment it has received since its 2002 privatisation. For KAP, that same number represents the money the Montenegrin state lost between 2005-2013, before the smelter went bankrupt in […]
Year in Review: The Journey of Aluminium Prices in 2017
The last twelve months have seen an incredible comeback in the aluminium market. Thanks to sweeping fundamental changes in the way aluminium is produced and consumed, the metal has rocketed from lows of $1,700 to five-year highs, before settling around the $2,000 mark. But what caused such a remarkable turnaround, and will the forces that […]
Why aluminium prices still have potential to grow
Aluminium has been the top-performing base metal this year, prices climbing 25 % so far, largely due to China’s determination to shutter illegal smelters, and cut production of aluminium and alumina by 30% in four provinces around Beijing during the winter, to curb pollution. After reaching the its highest level in five years of US$ […]
The Promised Road: Implementing Aluminium Capacity Cuts (Part 2)
As mentioned in the first part of this series, three main policies will remain in force this winter. We have already shown that the policy of shutting down illegal production capacity is strictly implemented. So far, the vast majority of illegal production have been closed or halted. The same trend is visible in the implementation […]
The Promised Road: Where is China’s Aluminium Industry Headed? (Part 1)
*Overcapacity: policy failure or implementation issue? *How will the policies be enforced this winter? *Will the shuttered capacity be restarted after March? *Where is China’s aluminium industry headed? The heating season in northern China has officially arrived. At the same time, the shadow of the deteriorating air quality over the past few years […]
Biden Infrastructure Bill A Big Boon To Aluminium Industry: Norsk Hydro VP Mike Stier
Earlier this month the United States Congress passed into law President Joe Biden’s US$1.2 trillion infrastructure package. The Investing in a New Vision for the Environment and Surface Transportation in America Act (or the INVEST in America Act) will allocate US$550 billion ...
The Net-Zero Shift Starts With Low Carbon Aluminium
2020 was supposed to be “year of climate action”, with the Glasgow COP26 acting as a major milestone for both ...
Aluminium at the LME Week – Key Takeaways
Between October 28 and November 1st, London hosted the traditional London Metals Exchange (LME) Week gathering of analysts, brokers, traders ...
Aluminium Market Oversupplied, Demand Growth Flat
Base metals prices reacted positively to the progress registered in the latest round of US – China trade talks in ...
