New and restarted smelting projects to boost China’s primary aluminium production by 3.4% in 2020

Shanghai Metals Market expects China’s primary aluminium production to be rebounded banking on new or recommenced smelting projects, while consumption to gather some pace with anticipated recovery in the automobile industry and building and construction sector.

In 2020, China’s primary aluminium production is anticipated to come in at 36.64 million tonnes growing by 3.4 per cent year-on-year, while consumption at 36.19 million tonnes rising 0.3 per cent.

In terms of social inventories, the level of 1 million tonnes is unlikely to be broken around the Chinese New Year holiday during January-February. Between March and May also, the stocks are less likely to record a substantial growth or decline given a traditional high consumption season and supply expansion. June onwards, the inventories are expected to begin an uptrend and exceed 1.2 million tonnes by August. In September to October, the inventory destocking is estimated to begin and continue through the first quarter of 2021.

The commissioning of China’s new aluminium projects is likely to be concentrated in the second half of 2020, boosting production by 1.3 million tonnes to 1.5 million tonnes. Net alumina imports in China are expected to stand at 1.1 million tonnes in 2020.

Domestic alumina prices are expected to rise in anticipation of demand supply dynamics. Prices of domestic bauxite are likely to increase too in 2020.