China’s bauxite purchases from Australia climb 75% to record

China’s bauxite imports from Australia rose 75 percent to a record in December, underlining the country’s role as top supplier after Indonesia banned exports in January.

Purchases jumped to 1.87 million metric tons from 1.07 million tons in November and 1 million tons a year earlier, customs data showed on Jan. 23. Imports from Australia rose 9.5 percent to 15.7 million tons in 2014 from a year earlier. Indonesia was the top supplier in 2013, with 48.7 million tons.

China, the biggest user of industrial metals, has sought supplies from other countries after Indonesia halted shipments of raw ore including, bauxite, nickel and copper to spur investment in domestic processing. Bauxite is the raw material used for aluminum and an additional 20 million tons will be needed annually in the next three years to meet demand from China, the Middle East and India, producer Alumina Ltd. says.

“China’s demand for bauxite is still pretty strong, based on the alumina capacity increase,” said Wan Ling, the Beijing-based assistant chief representative in China for CRU, a researcher. “Most of the new capacity is trying to use domestic bauxite, so imports will grow, but slightly. Transportation costs of domestic bauxite are quite low compared with imported bauxite,” she said by phone before the data.

Imports from India rose 9.4 percent to 613,104 tons in December from a month earlier, taking the 2014 total to 5.15 million tons. Supplies from Malaysia fell 0.8 percent to 673,558 tons, bringing the annual amount to 3.3 million tons.