China's primary aluminium production in March declines 11% M-o-M but records a growth of 10% on year

According to the recent data revealed by the Shanghai Metals Market, China’s primary aluminium production improved 10.2 per cent year-on-year to 3.35 million tonnes in March 2021 (31 production days). However, on a month-on-month basis, the production stood 10.93 per cent down from 3.02 million tonnes.

Daily output rose 200 tonnes from February to 107,900 tonnes in March. The proportion of aluminium water came in at 63.2 per cent, up 3.9 percentage points month-on-month.

Seven aluminium plants in Inner Mongolia conducted maintenance or reduced output in March due to local energy consumption restrictions, involving about 310,000 tonnes of annual capacity. Meanwhile, several plants in south-west China continued to raise operating capacity in the same month.

As of early April, there were 39.44 million tonnes of primary aluminium capacity in operation among 43.59 million tonnes per year of existing capacity, with operating rates stood at 90.5 per cent.

Guangxi Debao Baikuang Aluminium brought 100,000 tonnes of new capacity online earlier this week, while Shanxian Hengkang Aluminium is expected to restart production in late April. But in Inner Mongolia, primary aluminium production is forecast to continue to fall.

Meanwhile, demand from construction aluminium extrusion producers has improved significantly after the Qingming holiday, which is estimated to result in primary aluminium inventories downfall to 1.15 million tonnes at the end of April amid high season.