The US aluminum trihydrate market strengthened in September 2026 as downstream procurement, rising overseas production costs, and shipping bottlenecks supported prices. In contrast, Bosnia’s market faced a quarterly correction as European buyers drew on accumulated inventories and lower caustic soda costs eased manufacturing pressures, highlighting diverging regional price trends. US aluminum trihydrate market gains on demand and supply constraints US aluminum trihydrate prices increased 2.38% month over month in September, supported by purchases from wire and cable manufacturers, electrical infrastructure compounders, and electric vehicle (EV) component producers. Demand remained particularly resilient for applications involving low-smoke cable compounds and flame-retardant materials....
China-based China Aluminum International Engineering Co., Ltd. (CHALIECO) has won a bid for an engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract valued at approximately USD 833 million for a proposed alumina project in Vietnam, adding to investment activity in the country’s mineral processing sector. The project, being developed by Binh Phuoc Ore Mining and Beneficiation Joint Stock Company, is designed to process 2.4 million tonnes of alumina annually. The proposed contract is valued at around CNY 5.595 billion (USD 839.04 million), with completion expected within 27 months of the contract’s effective date. CHALIECO to oversee turnkey refinery development Under the proposed turnkey arrangement, CHALIECO’s responsibilities will cover the full project delivery process, from...
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Emirates Global Aluminium (EGA) has announced the completion of commissioning process of the calcination section of its alumina refinery at Al Taweelah in Abu Dhabi. This involved a carefully-planned process of testing equipment and systems in a new plant before start-up. This makes the calcination section the first of the four major sections of Al Taweelah alumina refinery to be ready for production. Al Taweelah is equipped with two calciners, each of which will have a capacity to produce 3,500 tonnes of alumina daily. The commissioning of the other sections of the alumina refinery is taking place in time and the refinery is expected to produce its first batch of alumina by H1 2019. Al Taweelah alumina refinery contains some 9,500 instruments, 222 tanks and long stretch of piping and...
Engaged in processing aluminium primarily in China, the company named Xinjiang Joinworld Co. Ltd., reportedly revealed its plan of building an alumina refinery in Guinea. The news came when Xinjiang Joinworld announced its project plan worth US$ 831 million after a filing to the Shenzhen Stock Exchange on Monday, December 3. Per the report, the plant will be built in the next one month in a special economic zone in the vicinity of the coastal city of Boffa. It will have a 27-year lifespan, raking in US$69 million per year from refining bauxite into alumina. Reportedly, the company itself will cover the cost of one quarter approximately or US$ 240 million of the construction. The remaining cost will be funded via loans and other debt vehicles. “The Guinea project will ensure sufficient...
According to Shanghai Metals Market, China’s total alumina production in November came in at 6.08 million tonnes, with average daily output at 203,000 tonnes. This marked a growth by 6.7 per cent from a year ago and 4.1 per cent from a month earlier. The entire production from January to November, thus, totalled at 64.3 million tonnes, 2.3 per cent higher than the same period last year. New and expanded alumina capacity in Shanxi and Henan provinces, as well as production commencement after maintenance in Guizhou and Shanxi accounted for the increase, SMM learned. Eased supply tightness of raw materials in Shanxi also drove the production. In Shanxi, however, November alumina output lowered due to maintenance across refineries, electric power plants, and baking furnaces. Visit of the...
The Australian explorer firm Pure Alumina Limited is planning to buy private Canadian high purity alumina (HPA) producer Polar Sapphire. Polar Sapphire makes some of the lowest cost HPA at its Toronto pilot plant available in the market at present. Pure Alumina, formerly called Hill End Gold told its investors that both companies were negotiating towards “agreeing to formal terms of a potential transaction” by January 31 2019. High Purity Alumina is used as a raw material for making lithium ion battery components, LED lights, smart phone screens, and surgical tools. Polar Sapphire’s Toronto pilot plant is producing HPA and generating cashflow in the process. Polar’s patented process produces 99.999 per cent purity HPA at one of the lowest production costs in the world and commands a...
Greek-based industrial conglomerate Mytilineos chairman said on Thursday, November 29 that the company anticipated its sales to top 2.2 billion euros in 2019 from 1.5 billion euros this year. Special mention he made about Mytilineos’ growing alumina business and new projects in Libya and Ghana because of which the company expected the imminent growth. Besides those two projects, Mytilineos, the operator of the biggest alumina refinery in Greece, is expecting to finalise a US$400 million investment in its home country to build a new alumina plant, but no decision is made yet. “We want very much to see it materializing,” Mytilineos said, telling investors to be patient and that the group would take its final investment decision after an ongoing engineering study was concluded. The group has...
Resource galore, wider applications of technologies, world-class road infrastructure, business-friendly industrial policies are some of the key factors that drove the pace of world-class aluminium production in the United Arab Emirates. {newsStudioGallery} Emirates Global Aluminium, popularly known as EGA is one of the leading UAE-based aluminium smelters. The development of EGA, which began in the 1970s, has taken the UAE from no aluminium production to the fifth largest aluminium producing nation in the world. About 1 tonne in every 25 tonnes of aluminium produced worldwide is made by EGA in the UAE. So, being one of the leading aluminium producing nations in the world, UAE imports a significant amount of alumina as a raw material for the production. EGA, for instance, imports all the...
Alumina and aluminium prices are on a downward trend after winter production cuts have started in China. Average spot alumina price in China stood at RMB 3075 per tonne on November 28, a further drop from RMB 3094 per tonne on November 27. The spot prices are expected to range within RMB 3075 per tonne today, Shanghai Metals Market found. Average price of alumina-east has fallen by RMB 20 per tonne to stand at RMB 3100 per tonne; alumina-central is down by RMB 20 per tonne at RMB 3080 per tonne; alumina-north is down by RMB 20 per tonne at RMB 3060 per tonne; and alumina-south is down by RMB 15 per tonne to stand at RMB 3090 per tonne as on November 28. Alumina (Chalco) price and Australian alumina FOB price remain unchanged at RMB 3350 per tonne and USD 400 per tonne respectively. As...
Alumina refinery of Navratna NALCO, located at Damanjodi in Koraput District of Odisha has received the CII-Exim Bank Business Excellence Award for the year 2018 in the Gold Plus category. The Award is based on the internationally recognized EFQM Excellence Model and is considered to be one of the highest recognition in the country in the area of Business Excellence. Alumina refinery has been rated as the lowest cost producer of alumina in the World (as per Wood Mackenzie report). The refinery had clocked the highest ever Alumina Hydrate production of 21.06 lakh with 100% capacity utilization in 2017-18. Appreciating the concerted efforts made by the employees, CMD Dr. Tapan Kumar Chand conveyed hearty congratulations to NALCO Collective and said, that with new business plan in place, the...
A consortium of the Societe Miniere de Boke (SMB) and Singapore’s Winning Shipping signed an agreement on Monday, November 26, with Guinea’s government for construction of the country’s first 1 million tonne per year alumina refinery. The refinery is part of a $3 billion project to develop Guinea’s bauxite industry, the largest in Africa, according to news published by Reuters. The consortium said in a statement it had signed three agreements with the government for construction of the project, which is due to start next year and is expected to be completed in 2022. In addition to the refinery, the agreements include access to new mining areas and the construction of a 135 km (83.89 miles) railway track. In a statement on Monday, production is expected to reach 10 million tonnes in the...
Backed on lowered alumina spot price for the two consecutive days, the A00 aluminium ingot price extended a plunge today by RMB 60 per tonne to RMB 13,690 per tonne, Shanghai Metals Market found. Yesterday, on November 26, the alumina spot price dropped from RMB 3131 per tonne to RMB 3119 per tonne, which further continued to plunge by RMB 25 per tonne to RMB 3094 per tonne today, on November 27. In the east and north, the alumina spot price today recorded a dip by RMB 30 per tonne to stand at RMB 3120 per tonne and RMB 3080 per tonne respectively; while in the central and south, the prices plunged by RMB 20 per tonne and RMB 25 per tonne to clock at RMB 3100 per tonne and RMB 3105 per tonne. As far as other input costs are concerned, bauxite showed no change in price from RMB 580 per...
According to data released by the General Administration of Customs on Monday, 26 November 2018, Iceland was the top recipient of China’s alumina exports in October 2018. The Nordic country, where companies including Alcoa and Rio Tinto have aluminium smelters, imported 102,100 tonnes of alumina last month. Other major alumina importers from China were Malaysia, the United Arab Emirates and India, reports Reuters. Malaysia imported a major chunk of alumina totalling 88,784 tonnes. The United Arab Emirates and India imported 86,951 tonnes and 36,758 tonnes of alumina respectively. Other countries that imported alumina from China were Canada, Russia, France and the Netherlands. China’s October alumina exports exceeded 460,000 tonnes and reached the highest since at least October 2014. The...
Shenzhen-based Qianhai Mercantile Exchange (QME), controlled by Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing, which started spot trading of alumina in October, has received tepid response from market participants. The trading launch was long awaited for HKEX and its chairman Charles Li, who bought the London Metal Exchange (LME) in 2012 for access to the world’s biggest metals consumer. The QME started it spot trading with alumina, considering the fact that alumina prices have soared this year amid U.S. sanctions on Rusal, outages at Norsk Hydro’s Alunorte alumina refinery and a strike at Alcoa’s operations in Western Australia. The exchange published a statement saying its first spot transaction was of about 3,000 tonnes of alumina between Chalco Trade, a unit of state-run Aluminum Corp of China,...
According to the data released by the General Administration of Customs on Friday, November 23, China’s October alumina exports exceeded 460,000 tonnes and reached the highest since at least October 2014. The reason because Chinese producers of the aluminium raw material continued to cash in as much as possible on the global shortage. The customs data also shows that China so far in 2018 has exported just under 1 million tonnes of alumina. China’s alumina exports in October alone surpassed the volume shipped across the last three calendar years 2015, 2016, and 2017 in total. Shortages in the global markets were due to an outage at Norsk Hydro’s Alunorte refinery in Brazil and then a strike at Alcoa’s alumina operations in Western Australia amidst the US sanctions against the UC Rusal. The...
Aluminum Corporation of China Limited (Chalco), the Shanghai-listed arm of China Aluminum Group, has announced on November 21 that it would join the bidding to buy 50% stake in Shanxi Huaxing Aluminum Co. The company intends to buy back the shares from the state-owned Baotou Transportation Investment Group, who is withdrawing its shares from the bauxite miner and alumina refinery. Shanxi Huaxing, an alumina producer located in Lvliang in North China’s Shanxi province, has an alumina capacity of 3 million tpy and an operating bauxite mine with 1.32 million tpy capacity. Chalco used to hold 60% stake in Shanxi Huaxing Aluminum and the remaining 40% was owned by its wholly-owned subsidiary Chalco Hong Kong. Then, the company sold of 50% stake in Shanxi Huaxing Aluminium Co. via a public...
The state-owned National Aluminium Company (Nalco) announced its plan for Brownfield expansion by five lakh tonnes and Greenfield by six lakh tonnes per annum in the next few years. The navaratna company, which at present produces 4.6 lakh tonnes of primary aluminium, eyes to establish a Greenfield refinery with a production capacity of 1.4 million tonnes or 2 million tonnes in Visakhapatnam. The investment, according to the company, required would be INR 7000 crore to INR 12000 crore. The smelter plant and the captive plant would reportedly involve additional investment. Mentioning about the clearance for investment in the Visakhapatnam project, Nalco Chairman and Managing Director T.K. Chand told The Hindu on Wednesday, November 21, that for the five-lakh tonne Brownfield expansion, the...
According to the latest data released by China’s National Bureau of Statistics, China’s production of alumina in October dropped by 2.7% month on month to 5.65 million tonnes. The total alumina output in the first ten months of 2018 now stands at 56.58 million tonnes. However, YTD alumina output still up 3.9% year on year. Shanghai Metals Market updated in the beginning of November that alumina production in China increased 0.3 per cent year on year to about 6 million tonnes in October 2018. The average daily production stood at 195,000 tonnes, down 1.7 per cent from September. However, NBS confirmed that the actual production rate dropped in the month of October. The fall in output is attributed to the on-month decline to feeble demand from aluminium smelters. This was further affected...
University of Queensland Sustainable Minerals Institute researcher Dr Tuan Nguyen has secured a fund of US$ 500,000 to develop a gel technology that will transform the way alumina refineries manage bauxite residues sustainably and economically. This mineral gel technology is expected to provide effective, low cost, rapid management of toxic red mud from alumina refineries while minimising the pollution risks from red mud storage. “New and cost-effective technologies are urgently required to assist the refinery industry to operate with much improved environmental outcomes,” Dr Nguyen said. As explained by him, the gel technology transforms mineral grains into stable and benign soil-like structures so it can sustain plant root systems and help in proper rehabilitation of the storage area....
Anrak Aluminium has got another relief from High Court in its way to restart operation at its alumina/aluminium plant. The Hyderabad High Court on Thursday, November 16 refused to stay an RBI circular that directed Anrak aluminium company to be put on the anvil of insolvency process at the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT). A writ appeal was filed by RBI expressing grievance over the order of a single judge on their circular. The said judge found fault with the RBI circular and with the SBI for initiating the insolvency process even after agreeing to the company's one-time settlement offer of INR 1,275 crore. Chief Justice TB Radhakrishnan and Justice S V Bhatt heard the writ appeal filed by RBI and refused to put a stay order on the circular. Anrak was a joint venture firm formed by...
