Vedanta Aluminium reported record quarterly production across aluminium, alumina and value-added products in Q2 FY27, supported by capacity expansion and efficiency improvements. Vedanta Aluminium Metal Limited, India’s largest aluminium producer, recorded its highest-ever quarterly aluminium production of 649,000 tonnes in Q2 FY27, up 5 per cent year on year from 617,000 tonnes in Q2 FY26. Aluminium output also increased 3 per cent quarter on quarter from 632,000 tonnes in Q1 FY27. For the first half of FY27, production reached a record 1,281,000 tonnes, up 5 per cent from 1,222,000 tonnes in H1 FY26. The company attributed the increase to new smelter volumes and efficiency improvements across existing production lines. Alumina output jumps 37 per cent Vedanta Aluminium’s alumina...
Asian aluminium premiums are facing more pressure ahead of Q4 talks. CRU’s Asia CIF aluminium premium is now USD 202 per tonne, well below the USD 395 per tonne Main Japanese Port (MJP) Q3 benchmark. MJP Q4 offers have also dropped sharply. They fell from USD 325 per tonne in early September to USD 245–260 per tonne as the new quarter approaches. This shows weaker sentiment in the market. Aluminium premiums are under pressure across Asia, especially in Korea, Malaysia and Taiwan. These markets are more exposed to spot price changes, so premiums can move quickly when supply or demand changes. Explore the production, demand and consumption forecasts of bauxite and alumina in our report: " Global Bauxite & Alumina Market Forecast to 2036: Supply–Demand, Trade Flows & Price Outlook " Premiums...
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China's nonferrous metals sector struggled from excess intermediate smelting capacity in the first half of 2013, compared with smaller upstream and downstream operations, the National Development and Reform Commission said in a report Tuesday. "There's a surplus in smelting capacities, with a lack of resources protection and shortage of high value-added processed products, relying on imports," NDRC said. "In Western [China], there were still new electrolytic aluminum projects that did not comply with state rules. The excess aluminum smelting capacity problem is still acute," the report said, without giving further details. NDRC said rising power costs and falling aluminum prices resulted in heavy losses in the aluminum sector. "The reliance on bauxite imports intensified, causing...
Hindalco Industries today reported an 11.61 per cent growth in standalone net profit to INR 474 crore for the first quarter ended June 30, largely due to an increase in other income. The flagship firm of the Aditya Birla group had posted a profit of INR 424.77 crore in the corresponding period of the previous fiscal year, the company said in a BSE filing. Hindalco said it is re-evaluating the investment strategy for the Aditya alumina refinery in Odisha and the Jharkhand aluminium projects due to "delays in getting various regulatory approvals and the current uncertain economic environment." Net sales fell 3.31 per cent to INR 5,766.69 crore, mainly due to an 8.46 per cent decline in revenue from the copper business (at INR 3,635.77 crore). The company said revenue was impacted due to...
Russia's government should consider creating state aluminium stocks which could help the country's metals giant Rusal by supporting global prices, deputy prime minister Arkady Dvorkovich said on Friday. Rusal, the world's largest aluminium producer, earlier this week urged the government to create stocks to counter a 15 percent fall in the price of aluminium this year. State stocks would create an additional buyer for aluminium and keep material off the market, helping to prop up the price of the metal. "Such a mechanism should be created, from my point of view, to make it possible to use in case a critical situation arises," Dvorkovich told reporters. Dvorkovich said the government's budget did not have the money for such stocks now. He did not say whether the government planned to buy...
An aluminium boom in China is causing some concern for our future. After a year of negotiations Meridian Energy and New Zealand Aluminium Smelters have agreed to terms. The two have settled on an electricity price for the next 17 years, although there are get out clauses and options for NZAS to scale back its operation. EPMU Invercargill organiser, Trevor Hobbs says the Chinese are building 60 new smelters. He says every smelter in the world will be having to compete with Chinese aluminium over the coming decades. Trevor Hobbs says the Tiwai smelter has one major feather in its cap, the fact it produces some of the most pure aluminium in the world.
Aluminium ingot inventories at three major Japanese ports fell about 6.3% month-on-month in July, trading house Marubeni Corp’s data showed on Monday August 12. The total inventories at Osaka, Yokohama and Nagoya stood at 234,000 tons in July down from 249,600 tons in June. Inventories were down 0.5% year-on-year. This week there is a summer holiday in Japan with a lot of factories shut and the draw-down in stock is partly in preparation.
Eskom has finally owned up to the full liability it faces as a result of preferential deals to supply cheap power to BHP Billiton’s aluminium smelters, putting it at a stunning R11.5bn in its latest financial statements — double that stated in previous years. In last year’s statements, Eskom put the liability from the contracts at R5.9bn. For the year ending March 2013, this has been restated as R11.5bn. This is essentially "lost" revenue, as a result of the contracts which supply the smelters according to various formulas at less than half the cost it takes to produce the power. The Billiton contracts were kept under wraps until March, when court action by Media24 forced Eskom to reveal the true cost of the agreements. In its latest statements, Eskom appears to be taking into account...
Meridian Energy has posted a 53 percent increase in underlying net profit after tax of $162.7 million, but has had to write down the total value of its assets by $476m after renegotiating the Tiwai Point aluminium smelter power deal. The new deal, announced last week, gives the smelter cheaper power after majority owner Rio Tinto sought to renegotiate after a fall in global aluminium prices. The writedown is the last piece of the puzzle as the Government seeks to partially privatise Meridian in a share float that is expected to see the country's largest power company by value list on the NZX later this year. There are no details in the result of the float of up to 49 percent of the company, and no indication whether the total $252.4m in dividends for the last financial year will be...
Rusal CEO Oleg Deripaska is making moves – to help his company’s margins. Bloomberg reported that Deripaska indicated 8.4% of the company’s production output will be halted this year to help support aluminum prices. “The company will idle 350,000 tonnes of capacity at five of its plants with high production costs until aluminum rises to USD 2,400 per tonne. Aluminum prices fell more than 13% this year to USD 1,799 per tonne as global stockpiles reached records and last month traded at the lowest level since 2009,” he is quoted as saying. Prices for Chinese aluminum bar saw the biggest increase on the weekly Aluminum MMI® this week, rising 1.1 percent. The price of Chinese aluminum billet declined 0.4 percent over the past week. The cash price of Chinese aluminum fell 0.1 percent. The...
Base metals on the London Metal Exchange (LME) have closed higher after prices surged following another round of upbeat Chinese economic data that stoked investor hopes for better demand from the world's top metals consumer. At the close of open-outcry trading in the London ring on Friday, LME three-month copper was 1.2 per cent higher on the day at $US7,274 a metric ton, it's highest closing price since early June. Aluminum closed up 1.6 per cent at $US1,870 a ton. All metals surged to post multi-week price highs during the session, with zinc closing some 2.5 per cent higher on the day at $US1,942 a ton, and tin posting its highest closing price in nearly four months at $US22,075 a ton. Data early in the session showed China's July industrial production rose 9.7 per cent on the year...
Rio Tinto's decision to call off the divestment plans for its Pacific Aluminium unit will not impact stakeholders of Australian Boyne Aluminium Smelters and the New Zealand Aluminium Smelters, a spokesman for Sumitomo Chemical, which has stakes in both companies, said Friday. "Following a comprehensive review we have... determined that the divestment of Pacific Aluminium for value is not possible in the current environment and it will be reintegrated into the Rio Tinto Alcan group," the miner said in its results statement Thursday. "This [calling off the divestment plans] is a move within the Rio Tinto group and will not have any effect on the stakeholders," the Sumitomo Chemical spokesman said. Sumitomo owns 20.64% of New Zealand Aluminium Smelters and 2.46% of the Boyne Smelters. "Since...
LME aluminium is expected to retrace to $1,853 per tonne, as it failed to break a resistance at $1,878. The resistance is provided by the 100 percent Fibonacci projection level of an upward wave c, which looks exhausted, as it could have unfolded too fast. Strengthening this resistance is another one that has been established by a trendline ascending from the July 2 high of $1,852. Chances are the wave c may peak around $1,878 or could have peaked at the $1,877, the Aug. 9 high. The 76.4 percent projection level at $1,853 will provide a support, a break below which will result in a further loss to $1,838, the 61.8 percent projection level. No information in this analysis should be considered as being business, financial or legal advice. Each reader should consult his or her own...
Hindalco Industries’s net profit for the quarter ended June is estimated to be lower than in the previous quarter, owing to a drop in net sales, brokerages have said. The company’s aluminium volumes are expected to have fallen six per cent quarter-on-quarter because of disruptions at the Hirakud unit due to heavy rains, Bank of America Merrill Lynch said in a report. “In copper smelting, we expect volumes to decline five per cent quarter-on-quarter due to the maintenance shutdown (at Dahej in Gujarat),” it said. The company’s earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and ammortisation margin was expected to shrink, too, due to lower sequential earnings from copper treatment, as well as refining charges, said brokerages. Hindalco runs custom smelting operations. Its profits do not...
CME Group, the world's leading and most diverse derivatives marketplace, today announced the first Aluminum MW U.S. Transaction Premium Platts (25MT) Futures (AUP) contracts were traded on Thursday 8 August. This trade was brokered by Jeffries Bache. Yesterday's trade was a 54 lot strip transaction for November and December 2013 between a physical trader and a major dealer. "This innovative aluminum swap futures contract enables commercial market participants in North America to better manage their price risk on an average basis throughout the month," said Harriet Hunnable, CME Group Managing Director, Metals. This contract is the first Exchange product that enables the aluminum Midwest premium to be managed. This is a complementary product to the LME aluminum contract. The US Midwest...
Rio Tinto has revealed an 18% drop in underlying earnings, down to US$4.2bn, in the first half of the year. It blamed lower metal prices and higher taxes for the decline. Rio also put on hold its efforts to sell its aluminium business interests after it couldn’t find a buyer. The FTSE 100 miner did, however, sweeten the pill for investors with a 15% increase in its interim dividend which this year will by 83.5p per share. It also said that cash flows were improving thanks to cost saving ‘momentum’ and highlighted progress with a number of significant projects. The ramping up Oyu Tolgoi copper-gold mine in Mongolia is now consistently operating above 80% of its design capacity. At the same time the group’s large, 290mln tonne, expansion of its iron ore operation in Australia’s Pilbara...
NZ Finance Minister Bill English was transparent about the reasons for injecting $30 million into the Tiwai Point aluminium smelter. Not known as a champion of government intervention, especially when it involves injecting taxpayers' money into struggling businesses, English said the deal would give some certainty to smelter workers and it would support the float of Meridian shares and give potential investors more certainty about what they're buying into. That's the real reason for a subsidy that goes against every economic principle this Government holds dear. Meridian supplies the power to the smelter and if Tiwai Point was to close, Meridian would lose its biggest customer. The numbers are huge. The plant gobbles up more electricity than Auckland city; it consumes one-seventh of all...
Aluminium prices edged up by 0.64% to INR 109.30 per kg in futures trade today as participants indulged in enlarging positions, supported by a firming overseas trend. Further, better demand in the spot markets also influenced metal prices. At the Multi Commodity Exchange, aluminium for delivery in August up by 70 paise, or 0.64%, to INR 109.30 per kg in business turnover of 310 lots. Likewise, the metal for delivery in September traded higher by 65 paise, or 0.59%, to INR 110.40 per kg in 44 lots. Marketmen said apart from increased domestic demand, a firming trend in base metals overseas after trade data in China, the biggest user, exceeded estimates, influenced aluminium prices at futures trade. In the international market, aluminium gained 0.5% to $1,797 per tonne at the London Metal...
Rio Tinto has scrapped plans to sell its Pacific Aluminium division, blaming tough market conditions after reporting first-half underlying earnings down almost a fifth on last year. Rio has been trying to divest the business, which is comprised of its Australasian aluminium smelters and the Gove alumina refinery in the Northern Territory, since October 2011. “Following a comprehensive review we have also determined that the divestment of Pacific Aluminium for value is not possible in the current environment and it will be reintegrated into the Rio Tinto Alcan group,” said chief executive Sam Walsh. The news came as Rio reported that underlying earnings fell 18 per cent to $4.2bn in the six months to the end of June compared with the same period a year ago, a result that was in line with...
Mining group Rio Tinto Ltd/Plc has scrapped efforts to sell its loss-making Pacific Aluminium business, blaming poor market conditions as weaker iron ore, copper and coal prices dragged first-half profit down 18 percent. Rio - which has put a handful of assets on the block as it concentrates on core operations and battles a $22 billion (14 billion pounds) debt burden - said in 2011 it could hive off Pacific Aluminium, known as Pac Al. But it said on Thursday it had not found a buyer and would not pursue a spin-off to shareholders. Instead it will bring Pac Al back into the fold of Rio Tinto Alcan. Some analysts said it was a negative that the group had been forced to scrap a sale so soon after shelving the sale of its diamond assets, and as questions grow over its ability to sell larger...
