China’s demand for imported bauxite to rise 20% to 132 million tonnes in 2022: Antaike

China’s demand for imported bauxite is expected to rise by about 20 per cent year-on-year in 2022, backed on increasing demand for the raw material from domestic alumina producers, pointed out the state-owned research agency Antaike.

China’s alumina producing capacity using imported bauxite is likely to reach a total of 47.3 million tonnes per year in 2022; thus, the demand for imported bauxite is estimated to touch 132 million tonnes.

Demand for bauxite in China has been growing at a rapid pace over the past few years as the country’s alumina industry is seeing expansions of capacity. By the end of October 2021, China’s year-to-date bauxite imports reached 91.06 million tonnes, showed customs data.

China’s alumina capacity has already reached 90.15 million tonnes in 2021, showed Antaike data. The capacity using imported and domestic bauxite has reached 42.1 million tonnes per year and 48.05 million tonnes per year, respectively.

Capacity dependent on imported bauxite has reached 46.7 per cent of the country’s total alumina capacity.

China’s dependency on imported bauxite was low before 2005 as it used to import alumina instead of refining domestically. But once China expanded alumina production capacity and its domestic bauxite resources depleted, it started relying heavily on imported bauxite.

Refineries in Shanxi and Henan province, which mainly used to consume domestic bauxite, are now expected to use imported bauxite. Meanwhile, China is expected to see 6.6 million tonnes per year of alumina capacity coming online in 2022, of which 5.2 million tonnes likely to come into production in the first half. The capacity will mainly consume imported bauxite.