German downstream aluminium exports fall 13% in H1 2026 but US enters top 5 with 228.1% import surge
Germany’s downstream aluminium export map underwent a noticeable shift in H1 2026. Shipments to the world fell, with most of Germany’s traditional European customers taking less aluminium downstream product. Yet, amid that broad retreat, one market moved in the opposite direction: the United States. German downstream aluminium exports to the world fell to 897,773.19 tonnes in H1 2026 from 1 million tonnes in H1 2025, a decline of 13 per cent year on year. The contrast was particularly sharp in the US market. American imports of German downstream aluminium reached 68,061.61 tonnes in H1 2026, up 228.1 per cent from just 20,743.62 tonnes in H1 2025. The increase of more than 47,000 tonnes was enough to push the US into Germany’s top 5 destinations for the first time. The export map is...
Caustic soda plant setup in India: How aluminium growth is reshaping demand, costs and opportunities
Caustic soda may not be the most visible ingredient in aluminium production, but without it, the journey from bauxite to alumina would look very different. The chemical, also known as sodium hydroxide, is a crucial reagent in the Bayer process, where it helps dissolve alumina-bearing material in bauxite and separate it from impurities. The dissolved material is then processed to recover alumina, which ultimately feeds aluminium production. That makes caustic soda more than just another industrial chemical. Its availability, price and efficient use can influence the economics of alumina refining and, by extension, the wider aluminium value chain. As India expands its alumina and aluminium capacity, the requirement for this chemical is also becoming increasingly important. For companies...
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Nhan Co Aluminum project to be put into trial operation by the end of 2014
Investors and contractors of the Nhan Co Aluminum project in the Central Highlands of Dak Nong have been asked to put the plant into trial operation by the end of 2014. The request was made on July 31 by a working mission of the steering committee for the implementation of bauxite plants in Central Highlands under the Ministry of Industry and Trade while inspecting the project’s progress. According to the project management board, to date over 12 trillion VND (564 million USD) has been poured into facilities, accounting for 73 percent of the total investment (16.8 trillion VND). However, the progress is one and a half years slower than schedule. All imported equipment and over 80 percent of locally-made ones have been transported to the project site for installation. Head of the...
LME aluminium to retest support at $1,986
LME aluminium is expected to retest a support at $1,986 per tonne, a break below which will open the way towards $1,931. The drop from the Aug. 12 high of $2,056 followed the completion of a five-wave cycle that developed from the May 21 low of $1,754.75. This cycle will be reversed more, as indicated by the bearish divergence on the daily MACD. A Fibonacci projection analysis reveals the support at $1,986, the 100 percent level, which has temporarily stopped the fall towards the 76.4 percent level at $1,931. The current moderate rebound triggered by the support may end around $2,022.
Vinacomin exports over 400,000 tonnes of aluminum
The Lam Dong Aluminum-Bauxite Complex Project of the Vietnam Coal and Mineral Industries Group (Vinacomin) has exported 411,000 tonnes of aluminum since operation began in December 2013. The information was released at a Bauxite Complex Project’s meeting in the central highlands province of Lam Dong on August 15. In the past seven months alone, the company shipped abroad a record high 251,000 tonnes of aluminum. According to Vinacomin’s representatives, these aluminum products were exported to many markets such as Switzerland , the Republic of Korea , Singapore , China , and Hong Kong.The group is currently expanding into Malaysia and in the Middle Eastern countries. In domestic market, Vinacomin provided 100 tonnes of aluminum products per month to local customers. The Tan Rai Bauxite...
Aluminium outlook improves on rising deficit
In 2007, the height of the global commodities boom, Aditya Birla Group Chairman Kumar Mangalam Birla and Tom Albanese, chief executive of Vedanta Resources chief executive and former chief executive of Rio Tinto, made landmark purchases of aluminium assets. Ignoring the advice of his colleagues at Hindalco, Birla acquired the 2005 Alcan spin-off Novelis, the world's largest manufacturer of aluminium rolled products such as can stock and industrial sheets. He knew there would always be money in downstream value-added products, unlike primary aluminium, which is subject to major price swings. At $6 billion, the investment looked stiff. But Birla stands vindicated, considering the post-takeover working of Novelis and its high-end aluminium rolling technologies for application in automobiles,...
Canyon Resources hopes to mine DSO bauxite in Birsok
Canyon Resources Ltd plans to produce bauxite in the Birsok project which involves two permits for a surface area that spans 1,460 km2 in Cameroon. The last set of samples collected during the reconnaissance drilling on Baoua, a 700 by 350 metre plateau yielded “the best results” of the drilling programme carried out on 19 plateaus in 4 prospecting zones. Boua revealed deposits “with 44% aluminium oxide (Al203) and 8.9% silicium dioxide (Si02) with mineralisation at a depth of 6 metres on average,” announced Canyon Resources. According to Phillip Gallagher, Managing Director of Canyon Resources, the high levels of aluminium oxide and low amounts of silicium dioxide show the company’s potential for finding DSO (Direct Shipping Ore) bauxite. These deposits have characteristics similar to...
China Hongqiao secures term shipments to replace Indonesia bauxite
China Hongqiao Group Ltd , the country's second-largest aluminium producer, has secured sufficient bauxite to replace supplies from Indonesia, which imposed a ban on exporting unprocessed mineral in January. China in January imported 6.1 million tonnes of bauxite from Indonesia, which halted ore exports from mid-January, in a move to force miners to build processing plants and smelters within the Southeast Asian nation. The company had signed term contracts with miners in Australia and India to supply more than 10 million tonnes of bauxite per year for three to five years, starting 2014, China Hongqiao Chief Executive Officer Zhang Bo said. "We have found (bauxite) to replace the shortfall from Indonesia," Zhang told reporters in a news conference in Hong Kong on Monday after the company...
Aluminum Association updates downstream aluminium statistics for July
The Aluminum Association’s “Index of Net New Orders of Aluminum Mill Products” for July was up 4.8 percent over June. Orders for flat roll products (sheet, plate, can stock and foil) rose 5.9 percent over the previous month, orders for extruded products were up 4.4 percent, while orders for redraw rod were off 7.3 percent. Compared to July 2013, total orders increased 8.1 percent over the previous year. On average, orders recorded by domestic producers through July 2014 were up seven-tenths of one percent over last year. Excluding domestic can stock, year-to-date orders are up 3.2 percent over last year. Estimated shipments of Aluminum Foil by U.S. and Canadian producers totaled 88.1 million pounds during July 2014, down 2.9 percent from the July 2013 total of 90.7 million pounds....
Queensland Bauxite moving forward at South Johnstone
Queensland Bauxite could have a Scoping Study completed for the South Johnstone Bauxite project in north Queensland within 6 - 8 weeks. The study would likely provide baseline capital costs of mining the bauxite as well as the operating costs. The project has an initial inferred resource of 30 million tonnes of bauxite with a much larger Exploration Target of circa 300 million tonnes. The Resource estimate forms the basis of the Scoping Study by an independent consultant. The study would detail, among other variables an estimate of transport costs from South Johnstone to the deepwater Port of Mourilyan and port and shipping costs and suitability. Notably, infrastructure options would include the availability of services and resources, power and water supply and alternatives for site...
China Zhongwang revenue rose 13.2% year-on-year
China Zhongwang Holdings Limited, the second largest industrial aluminium extrusion product developer and manufacturer in the world and the biggest one inAsia and China, announced the unaudited results for the six months ended 30 June 2014. China Zhongwang recorded steady growth in product sales during the review period. Revenue rose 13.2% year-on-year to approximatelyRMB7.95 billion while gross profit margin slightly increased by 0.2 percentage points to 28.2%. Profit attributable to equity shareholders increased 18.6% toRMB1.27 billion. To reward shareholders’ longstanding support for the Company, the board of directors has proposed an interim dividend ofHK$0.08 (approximately RMB0.06) per share to the holders of ordinary shares and convertible preference shares, equivalent to a...
Supply-demand dynamics brighten aluminium
The aluminium market is perking up, with the average price per tonne on the London Metal Exchange rising to over $2,000 now from $1,693 in February 2014. While the primary reason for this is high physical delivery premium, the supply-demand dynamics are also brightening. This is due to a long waiting period and a court battle looming over the metal, owing to warehouse rules on delivery. In the last few years, warehouses registered with the LME were witnessing bottlenecks after metals such as aluminium were used as a financing tool. Now, over ten million tonnes is estimated to be stored in the LME warehouses, split equally between official warehouses and unofficial ones. Fitch believes that around 60-70 per cent of the stocks are tied up in commodity financing transactions. To reduce...
Aluminum supply tightens as production slumps in Brazil
Producing aluminum in Brazil got so expensive as electricity prices surged to records this year that Alcoa Inc. (AA) idled its Pocos de Caldas smelter and now sells the facility’s power instead of metal. The worst drought in decades drained reservoirs used to run hydroelectric generators that supply power to extract aluminum, boosting costs already inflated by more spending on labor and transportation. Cities may be forced to ration water, and last week the government cut taxes on imported aluminum to help ease shortages as demand grows for beverage cans. While the country has the world’s third-largest ore reserves, it is importing more refined metal than it ships after output in July fell to the lowest on records going back to 1996, data show. Aluminum prices this week reached the...
China Aluminium at record production in July
China reported record production of aluminium in July. Primary aluminium production went up 1.2 percent in comparison to June. This has hit a second consecutive record as smelters restarted idled capacity after the demand started improving and LME started going up. Aluminium production in China records 1.98 million tonnes in July, compared to the previous record of 1.95 million tonnes in June. The July production was up 7.2 percent from the same period in last year. During the first seven months of 2014, aluminium output increased 7.5 percent to 13.5 million tonnes. Primary Aluminium production may rise further due to new capacity. Chinese research firm Antaike expects about 3 million tonnes of aluminium smelting capacity to come onstream in the second half of 2014, after about 1.6...
Economical preheating furnace at Rio smelter improves safety
VHE has completed the fabrication and installation of a preheating furnace for the Rio Tinto Alcan smelter at Straumsvík in Iceland. Most smelters add cold aluminium metal to the charge of molten aluminium in the casthouse furnaces. This metal may be in the form of sows, pure offcuts, or other scrap arisings. Such metal is frequently stored outdoors and can be wet. Charging of damp aluminium to hot furnaces results in the generation of large volumes of steam, and can cause steam explosions, in the worst cases blasting molten aluminium around the casthouse. Traditionally, scrap metal has been heated with a gas flame to remove moisture, but such localised heating can never fully remove water, and steam explosion can still occur. VHE‘s furnace, which is semi-automatic, is able to heat 15...
Aluminum products company expands in Louisa
Recently expanded production facility capabilities and a positive outlook for American manufacturing are positioning Patriot Aluminum Products for long-term growth. But first, said Tom Click, Patriot Aluminum’s president and CEO, the company still has a few more boxes to unpack. Patriot Aluminum moved into a newly constructed 30,000-square-foot production facility at the end of May. The building project broke ground last August. “Business has been very good, and it’s nice that we were able to make the move and the transition without any kind of disruption,” Click said. “It’s kind of like moving your house if you had a 30,000-square-foot-house. We still have a lot of things in boxes — some of the non-critical pieces of equipment, some of the inventory and small tools, things like that.”...
Novelis the driving force behind Ford's aluminum trend
Novelis, a global aluminum supplier, is seeing a 45-year-old dream come true as the auto industry is on the cusp of making the lightweight material mainstream. Novelis is supplying aluminum for the 2015 Ford F-150 that goes on sale later this year. The supplier is expanding its Oswego, N.Y. plant, for a third time and Ford can use everything it can make. For 40 years prior to 2009, the amount of aluminum on vehicles increased by about seven pounds a year, said Tom Boney, a general manager for Novelis North America. First it was hoods, then doors and liftgates. A few luxury automakers were bold enough to offer aluminum frames and body panels on selected models. But when it came to the full body, steel remained the metal of choice. “We just kept plugging away,” Boney said. “We were always...
Hindalco Q1 profit drops 31% on high fuel, finance cost
World's largest aluminium rolling company Hindalco Industries missed street expectations with the first quarter net profit falling 30.9 percent year-on-year to INR 327.5 crore dented by higher power and fuel, finance, and raw material costs. Profit in the corresponding quarter of last fiscal was INR 474.1 crore. The profit base was also high in Q1FY14 due to other income, which included non-recurring income of INR 203 crore. In the April-June quarter of current financial year, other income was INR 216.30 crore as against INR 427.94 crore in corresponding quarter of last fiscal. Analysts had expected the Aditya Birla group company to report net profit of INR 327.5 crore on revenue of INR 8,100 crore for the quarter, according to CNBC-TV18 poll estimates. Total income from operations jumped...
Novelis completes $106 million investment in Brazil
Novelis, the world leader in aluminum rolling and recycling, today announced the commissioning of a new coating line for beverage can end stock and an expanded recycling center at its Pindamonhangaba (SP), Brazil complex. The company invested approximately $106 million in the combined projects that will add 100,000 metric tons of coating capacity and 190,000 metric tons of recycling capacity when fully operational. "These critical expansion projects increase our capacity to meet the growing demand for beverage cans in Brazil and enable Novelis to process even higher levels of recycled material as we continue to increase the recycled content in our products," said Tadeu Nardocci, Senior Vice President, Novelis and President of Novelis South America. "Brazil is one of the most...
BHP Billiton set to demerge aluminium, bauxite and nickel assets
Investors have welcomed news that mining giant BHP Billiton appears set to establish a separate $20bn company comprising its aluminium, bauxite and nickel assets. The global mining giant issued a statement on Friday saying a demerger of assets is its preferred option after announcing in April that it is studying the next phase of simplification, including structural options. “A demerger of a selection of assets is our preferred option,” BHP said in a statement. Stocks rose about 2.46% on Friday afternoon after the market received news of the demerger. BHP shares rose 94c to $39.10 by 4pm. The company says a portfolio focused on its iron ore, copper, coal and petroleum assets would retain the benefits of diversification, generate stronger growth in cash flow and a superior return on...
