
Indonesia’s alumina production is boosting with time. The sole smelter-grade alumina refinery in the country PT Well Harvest Winning (WHW) has reportedly hit the production of more than 2 million metric tonnes of smelter-grade alumina (SGA) since June 2016 or the month of SGA refinery’s maiden operation.

WHW public relations executive Hen Roliya said that 98.5 percent of the production was exported and the remaining was for state energy holding PT Inalum, which needs SGA to produce their aluminium ingot.
"We have been selling [our SGA] to Inalum, which is 1.5 percent of our production. [...] And there will be an increase of sales to Inalum in November to 28,000 metric tonnes of SGA," she told The Jakarta Post on Friday.
Inalum bought 31,179 metric tonnes of SGA from WHW in December 2017 and February 2018.
Earlier, Inalum managing director Oggy A. Kosasih said in a press statement that the firm needed 500,000 metric tonnes of alumina per annum to produce 250,000 metric tonnes of aluminium ingot. “We have been importing alumina to date to produce aluminium ingot,” he said.
Inalum plans to build its own SGA refinery, which is expected to start operating in 2021 and cost more than US$850 million.
Aluminium Corporation of China Limited (Chalco), China’s largest producer of aluminium, is also planning to open a new alumina plant that would produce 1 million tonne per year, said president Luo Jianchuan in an interview in Chongqing.
On this note, Indonesia’s alumina export is recording a year-on-year rise, according to the figures revealed by the global export-import data. In the year 2016, the country had exported 0.3 million tonnes of alumina in total, which in 2017, climbed to 1 million tonnes, up 233 per cent. In 2018, the estimated alumina export by Indonesia is likely to stand at 1.3 million tonnes, up 333 per cent higher from 2016 and 30 per cent from that of 2017.

China, according to the data, is estimated to be the highest alumina importer from Indonesia, accounting for 1 million tonnes in the entire year of 2018. Malaysia is estimated to follow China accounting for 0.1 million tonnes of import and then India securing 35147 tonnes in total.
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