According to the Statistical data from ABAL, the aluminium industry association of Brazil, the country’s total bauxite production from January to December 2018 dropped 16% to 32 million tonnes from 38 million tonnes in 2017. It was mostly driven by production drop in Norsk Hydro’s bauxite mine at Paragominas, PA. While the mine produced 11.4 million tonnes of bauxite in 2017, it dropped to 6.2 million tonnes in 2018, due to the disruptions that happened because of the leakage in red mud pond at Alunorte refinery. From March2018, the Paragominas mine and the Alunorte refinery started to operate with 50% of its capacity due to a court order.
The bauxite mines that contributed to the total production are Alcoa’s Poços de Caldas (MG) and Juruti (PA) mine, Companhia Brasileira de Alumínio’s mines at Caldas, Miraí and Itamarati, Mineração Rio do Norte S.A. and Norsk Hydro’s bauxite mine at Paragominas, PA.
Other minor mines contributed about 2 million tonnes of bauxite production.
Domestic consumption dropped from 28.7 million tonnes in 2017 to 22 million tonnes in 2018, driven by 50% capacity cut at Alunorte. Out of the total production, Brazil exported 8. 4 million tonnes of bauxite in 2018; about 6% less from 9 million tonnes exported in 2017.
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