ALUMINIUM-Major market developments in June

PRODUCTION: June 23 - BHP Billiton , the world's largest mining group, said the estimated cost of expanding the Worsley alumina project in Western Australia had increased by more than half due to its complexity and inflationary pressures. BHP, which has an 86-percent interest in the project, said its share of the estimated cost had increased to $2.995 billion from the $1.9 billion figure given in May 2008. June 20 - Daily average primary aluminium output in May dropped to 69,900 tonnes compared with a revised 70,300 in April and 66,400 in May 2010, provisional figures from the International Aluminium Institute (IAI) show. June 20 - Daily average primary aluminium output in China rose to 49,700 tonnes in May from 48,400 tonnes in April, provisional figures from the International Aluminium Institute (IAI) showed. Total primary aluminium production in China rose to 1.541 million tonnes in May from 1.451 million tonnes in April and 1.418 million tonnes in May last year. June 15 - China produced 7,052,000 tonnes of primary aluminium in the first five months of the year, up 4.0 percent from year ago levels, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. Output of alumina rose by 15.6 percent over the same period to 14,315,000 tonnes. June 7 - U.S. aluminum producer Ormet Corp said it has begun to restart its idled alumina refinery in Burnside, La. and expects to be producing the intermediate material for making aluminum metal in the fourth quarter.