China bauxite import drops 1.75% MoM in Jan; Guinea marches ahead as top supplier

Due to ongoing winter-heating season and resultant aluminium smelting cuts, bauxite demand in China domestic market has declined marginally. As a result, bauxite imports dropped in January to 7,037,633 tonnes from 7,163,056 tonnes in December last year. China’s total bauxite import for the 12-months period ending December 31, 2017, stood at 68.5 million tonnes of bauxite, up 32.55 per cent from the previous year.

Based on the export-import data released by General Customs, China, bauxite imports in January have increased by more than 50 per cent from the same period previous year. Guinea still remains the top supplier of the ore to China:

Data Source: ww.metal.com

Guinea exported 3,523,203 tonnes of bauxite to China in January compared to 3,054,168 tonnes in December 2017. The total bauxite export by the country to China stood at 27.62 million tonnes for the entire year.

Other key bauxite exporting countries namely, Australia, Indonesia, Brazil, Solomon Islands, Republic of Ghana, and Vietnam supplied lesser volumes of the ore to China: 2.4 million tonnes, 387,170 tonnes, 100,989 tonnes, 206,985 tonnes, 116,249 tonnes, and 110407 tonnes respectively.

Guinea has been emerging as the mainstay for bauxite sourcing as far as China market is concerned. The West African country has been focussing on its mineral export-based strategy for growth in a big way. Its bauxite exports to China surged by 132.35 per cent in 2017. Macroeconomic scenario remaining fairly unchanged, Guinea will continue to grow its bauxite exports in a similar way in 2018 as well.