China's Chalco posts wider Q3 net loss as oversupply persists

Aluminum Corp of China Ltd (Chalco) posted a wider net loss of 1.29 billion yuan ($210.99 million) for the July-September quarter due to oversupply in the world's biggest aluminium market.

China's biggest producer of primary aluminium and raw material alumina sells its products mainly in its own market.

Its net loss widened from 1.22 billion yuan a year earlier.

For the three quarters from January to September, its net loss was 5.41 billion yuan, the company said in a filing to the Hong Kong stock exchange.

A year earlier it had a net loss of 1.85 billion yuan.

Chalco closed a 1.6-million-tonne-per-year alumina production facility in central Henan province last month after a waste pool broke down.

Vice Chairman Sun Zhaoxue resigned last month after the government launched an investigation into him, becoming the second Chalco executive to step down in a year.

China's production of primary aluminium jumped, hitting a record high for a fourth straight month in September as new capacity came onstream and some idled capacity returned.

The most active aluminium futures contract in Shanghai gained 3.7 percent in the July-to-September quarter after falling more than 4 percent in the first half, although the price has declined again since early September.

Chalco's peers in the global market include U.S. producer Alcoa Inc, which reported a rise in third-quarter profit helped by higher aluminium prices in the international market.

Benchmark aluminium prices on the London Metal Exchange have risen 12 percent this year, to $2,016.5 per tonne on Thursday.

(1 U.S. dollar = 6.1140 Chinese yuan)