Australia replaces Malaysia to become China’s top bauxite supplier in May

The market forecasts seem to be taking a real shape as Australia replaced Malaysia as the top supplier of bauxite to china in the month of May after falling behind from April.

China being the largest aluminium producer in the world and not having any notable indigenous source for bauxite, imports a large volume of the mineral every year. In May, 2015, China bought 1.61 million metric tons of bauxite from Australia from 1.62 million tons a month earlier and 1.24 million tons in 2014. Shipments from Malaysia were 1.58 million tons in May, a fall of 23 percent from April.

In January 2014, Indonesia imposed a heavy tax on export of raw minerals and halted shipments of raw ore including bauxite, nickel and copper, in a bid to encourage domestic processing of the mineral. Heavily dependent on Indonesia for bauxite, the world’s second-largest economy then started looking for alternative supplies to feed the numerous alumina refineries in the country. China imported 3.83 million tons of bauxite in May, less than half of the record 8 million tons in January last year.

“Malaysia is capable to supply more” as there are new mines starting to produce, said Wan Ling, the assistant chief representative of CRU in China. She expects the shipments from Malaysia to expand to 12 million tons this year, she said June 1. Cargoes in May already increased about 20-times from last year.

According to a data from the Minerals and Geoscience Department in Kuala Lumpur, bauxite production in Malaysia more than quadrupled to 962,799 tons in 2014 from 208,770 tons last year. “Malaysia has emerged as a strong contender” to replace Indonesia, Morgan Stanley said in a June 22 report. The bank estimated the bauxite consumption in China to be about 35 million tons in 2015.