Brazil’s share of alumina export might drop in H12018 on 50% closure of Alunorte refinery

The closure of 50% operations in Hydro’s Alunorte Refinery recently will have a significant effect in the alumina market in 2018. Hydro’s Alunorte is the world's largest alumina refinery and is located in Pará, Brazil. On average, 14% of its production goes to the domestic market and the other 86 % goes for export.

When we see the table above, we see the top alumina producers are China, Australia and Brazil. However, China exports a very insignificant portion of its alumina production and consumes most of it domestically. Jamaica has restarted Alpart alumina refinery and it has started shipping to China. Jamaica, Australia, Vietnam remain the top alumina supplier to China and continue to remain so in 2018. For ex-China world, Australia and Brazil play a dominating role as alumina suppliers.

Data shows, in 2016, Australia shipped about 23 million tonnes of alumina while Brazil shipped an estimated 8 million tonnes of alumina. In 2017, the Brazil’s export increased to 9 million tonnes while Australia’s share dropped to 18.3 million tonnes. Our estimate shows, in 2018, Australia is estimated to ship a total of 13 million tonnes of alumina, much lesser than the volume exported in 2017.

For Brazil, the data shows an estimated export of about 10 million tonnes of alumina in 2018. But since the production at Alunorte is closed down by 50% till the time the situation comes under control, for the first half of the year, Brazil is expected to slip from the top three positions as an alumina supplier. In 2017, the top alumina importers from Brazil were Norway, Argentina, Qatar, USA, Iceland and UAE among others. It remains to be seen which country will squeeze in to take up this position as an alumina exporter.