Century Aluminum’s proposed USD 4 billion primary aluminum smelter in Inola, Oklahoma, is “moving forward on all fronts” as the company prepares for construction, despite local opposition and legal challenges, CEO Jesse Gary said during the company’s third-quarter earnings call. Developed jointly by Century Aluminum and Emirates Global Aluminium (EGA), the project is designed to produce 750,000 tonnes of primary aluminum annually, potentially doubling U.S. primary aluminum production. The facility is expected to create thousands of direct and indirect jobs and add USD 1.5 billion to Oklahoma’s gross domestic product, according to company estimates. The partners had targeted construction to begin by the end of 2026. However, local restrictions and permitting challenges have affected the...
LME aluminium stocks declined by more than half during the first nine months of 2026, falling by 267,875 tonnes from 509,250 tonnes on January 2 to 241,375 tonnes on September 30 (52.6 per cent). The decline continued throughout the period, with average warehouse inventories falling each month. Compared with the same period in 2025, monthly average stocks were lower across all nine months, with the gap widening in the third quarter. Q1 LME aluminium stocks fall 18.2 per cent LME aluminium inventories continued to decline during Q1 2026. Month-end stocks fell from 495,725 tonnes in January to 465,550 tonnes in February, before dropping further to 416,775 tonnes in March. Monthly average inventories stood at 498,670 tonnes in January, 481,801 tonnes in February and 440,710 tonnes in March....
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SmarTrend identified an Uptrend for Noranda Aluminum (NYSE:NOR) on December 13th, 2011 at $8.83. In approximately 2 months, Noranda Aluminum has returned 21.81% as of today's recent price of $10.75. In the past 52 weeks, Noranda Aluminum share prices have been bracketed by a low of $6.67 and a high of $17.82 and are now at $10.75, 61% above that low price. Over the past week, the 200-day moving average (MA) has gone down 0.8% while the 50-day MA has advanced 3.6%. Noranda Aluminum Holding Corp is an integrated producer of aluminum products, as well as rolled aluminum coils. The Company produces aluminum products in the form of billets, rods and sows, used mainly for building construction, architectural and transportation applications. Noranda also produces foil and light gauge sheet...
Excess capacity in aluminium smelting will drag on for years to come, even while losses weigh on producers, as political pressures in China and Russia to keep jobs and push self-sufficiency prevent or delay plant closures. Rio Tinto (RIO.L) (RIO.AX) acknowledged a gloomy outlook for the sector this week, when it slashed the book value of its Alcan unit by $9 billion. Rio Chief Executive Tom Albanese warned margins may continue to be squeezed in the medium term. "The current environment in the aluminium industry is tough ... I can't predict when the price will recover." In China, which accounts for 40 percent of global output, local authorities are wary of closing smelters that lose money but provide jobs, while the central government continues to drive an overall capacity expansion to...
Aluminum stocks held at three major Japanese ports came to 277,800 tonnes at the end of January, up 30,500 tonnes, or 12.3 percent, from a month earlier, trading house Marubeni Corp said on Friday. Marubeni collects data from the key ports of Yokohama, Nagoya and Osaka.
Aluminum traders probably closed out bets that prices will climb as the number of outstanding contracts declined to the lowest in more than three months at the same time as prices fell. Open interest in London Metal Exchange aluminum futures declined by 9,457 lots to 1.35 million contracts in the week ended Feb. 8, the lowest level since Oct. 19, according to LME figures. Each lot represents 25 metric tons of the metal used in cars or packaging. The benchmark contract for three-month delivery fell 0.5 percent in the period. When open interest and prices fall together, this suggests investors liquidated bets on climbing prices, according to Macquarie Group Ltd. Open interest in LME aluminum has fallen 15 percent since reaching an all-time high of almost 1.6 million lots in December.
Even though LME aluminum stocks surged again by 49,900 mt to 5.11 million mt as the delivery date nears, US retails sales in January came out far below expected and investors still hold worries towards the Greek austerity plan, which helped the US dollar index consolidate at 79, LME three-month aluminum nevertheless closed up USD 1.8/mt or 0.88% at USD 2,218.8/mt on Tuesday, supported by strong short covering every time the metal slipped below USD 2,200/mt. Aluminum was the only base metal reporting gains in LME during the day. SMM expects LME three-month aluminum to test support at USD 2,200/mt and move between USD 2,190-2,230/mt during today’s trading as the US dollar index’ stay above 79 weakens rebound momentum. The most active SHFE aluminum contract for delivery in May is expected to...
Top aluminium producer RUSAL Plc said on Monday that it expects more companies to cut aluminium output this year, with China accounting for about a third of global cuts, but still forecast that global output would top demand. A supply glut on the back of a deepening European debt crisis and global economic slowdown has hurt demand and prices for the lightweight metal, sending many aluminium producers into the red and triggering a round of production cuts, including at top U.S. aluminium maker Alcoa. "RUSAL's estimation is that primary aluminium production losses ex-China may achieve 2.7 million tonnes in 2012, and expect China closures will cut 1.2 million tonnes," Rusal said said in a statement. That would equal a total cut of 3.9 mln tonnes, about 8 percent of its previous 2012...
Rio Tinto's chief executive and chief finance officer will forgo their annual bonuses, after the miner reported a 59% drop in profit for last year. Rio Tinto's 2011 earnings were hit by US$9.29 billion in impairment charges, mainly against the value of the company's aluminum business. The blow was softened by a 34% increase in the company's dividend. CEO Tom Albanese said the Anglo-Australian company paid a heavy price for the US$38 billion acquisition of Canadian aluminum company Alcan Inc. at the top of the market in 2007. The deal increased Rio Tinto's debt and forced the company to sell businesses and slash costs in the wake of the global financial crisis. "I am making a clear statement that this happened on my watch, even if it was early on in my tenure," Mr. Albanese said Thursday...
United Co. Rusal PLC (0486.HK), the world's biggest aluminum producer by output, said Monday that 2011 total aluminum production rose 1% to 4.123 million metric tons, supported by rising demand for the industrial metal in a global economic recovery. EuroNext- and Hong Kong-listed Rusal, which is controlled by Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska, said it produced 8.154 million tons of alumina last year, up 4% from 2010. Alumina, a raw material for the production of aluminum, is processed from bauxite, an aluminum ore. The company's bauxite output rose 14% in 2011 to 13.473 million tons.
Alcoa will build a new plant in Indiana and expand two other facilities to increase production of aluminum-lithium alloys to meet rising demand from the aerospace industry. The aluminum company, which operates out of Pittsburgh, has begun work on a 115,000-square-foot plant near its current facility at Lafayette, Ind. It will have the capacity to produce more than 20,000 metric tons of aluminum lithium. New alloys, introduced last year, allow manufacturers to build much lighter aircraft, which are selling at a premium because the the potential cost savings a fuel, one of the airline industries' biggest costs. Orders for manufacturers like Boeing Co. are on the rise. The company posted a 20 percent jump in net income Wednesday, driven by orders from the commercial aircraft industry. The...
"Aluminum Corp. of China signed a framework agreement with the local government of Erdos in Inner Mongolia region to build an integrated 500,000 metric ton aluminum project, the Erdos Daily reported on Feb. 11. The company, known as Chinalco, will invest 30 billion yuan ($4.76 billion) to build a coal mine with an annual capacity of 10 million tons, three 350 mega-watt power units, along with the primary aluminum plant, according to the newspaper. The report didn’t provide details on when the projects will be completed. Two calls to the press office of Beijing-based Chinalco were not answered. "
The world's top aluminum producer, Russia's United Company RUSAL Plc, said on Monday it may cut aluminum output by 6 percent in the next 18 months, joining similar moves by other producers of the metal, as it shifts some sales of aluminum produced at the end of 2011 to this year. A supply glut amid a deepening European debt crisis and global economic slowdown has hurt demand and prices for the light weight metal, sending many aluminum producers into the red. ""The dynamic growth of the world economy in the first half of 2011 slowed down significantly by the end of the year, impacting the situation in the aluminum industry,"" RUSAL said in a filing to the Hong Kong stock exchange. ""The continued fears over the euro zone debt crisis and potential of a hard landing for the Chinese economy...
SINGAPORE: LME aluminium will drop further to the Feb. 7 low of $2,207 per tonne, as indicated by its wave pattern and a rising channel. A medium-term uptrend rising from the Dec. 14, 2011 low of 1,955.75 could have completed after developing five waves, with wave (5) having peaked at the Feb. 9 high of $2,303. The drop on Friday has violated a rising channel, and the lower channel line of a duplicated channel points to a target at$2,207, the wave "2" trough. Strategically, the target will be confirmed only after a support at $2,236 is broken. No information in this analysis should be considered as being business, financial or legal advice. Each reader should consult his or her own professional or other advisers for business, financial or legal advice regarding the products mentioned in...
TREASURER Wayne Swan says the Gillard government won't be writing a "blank cheque" to bail out the aluminium industry. With Alcoa to review the future of its Geelong aluminium smelter, Mr Swan said the government was talking to the aluminium industry about the challenges it faced. “We're talking to the industry and I am not necessarily signing up for any cheque at all,” he told ABC radio. Mr Swan said the government was talking about how it could help the industry, which has been hit by unfavourable global conditions. “We will continue to have those discussions and what we will do in the process is behave responsibly,” Mr Swan said. Alcoa said this week it was reviewing the viability of the Point Henry smelter because low metal prices, a high Australian dollar and input costs had made it...
The chief executive of mining giant Rio Tinto said he will not take an annual bonus after the company posted an $8.9bn (£5.6bn) writedown on the value of aluminium assets bought under his oversight. Tom Albanese said he declined to be considered for the reward because of what has happened to the FTSE 100 miner's Alcan arm, purchased in 2007 for $38bn shortly before the markets crashed. "It's very simple," he said. "It [the Alcan deal] was on my watch. I just didn't want to be considered for a bonus." Rio's finance director Guy Elliott also asked to not be considered for a bonus for 2011. Mr Albanese received a £1.6m bonus in 2010, half of which was cash and half shares vesting at a later date. The move makes him the second chief executive in recent weeks to forgo a bonus, after a public...
DIVERSIFIED miner BHP Billiton expects the volatility in the commodity markets to continue as sovereign debt problems in Europe weigh on customer behaviour, it said yesterday in its report for the six months ended December last year. The company reported a 5,5% fall in profit to $9,9bn. Revenue was up 9,7% to $37,4bn. It declared an interim dividend of 55 US cents per share versus 46c in the previous interim period. BHP said it would not allocate more capital for its struggling aluminium businesses, including smelters in SA. CEO Marius Kloppers said: "Our view is that aluminium has had a structural profitability downturn ... At this stage we don’t want to allocate more capital in this sector. "Our rules around what to run and not what to run are pretty straightforward. If you don’t make a...
FALLING aluminium prices sparking a massive writedown of Rio Tinto's assets have sent the miner's full-year net profit tumbling almost 60 per cent. And chief executive Tom Albanese has been forced to forgo any bonus for 2011 due to the bleak development. The mining heavyweight's aluminium business had been struggling due to a sharp drop in prices and a weak US dollar but the size of the $8.2 billion writedown surprised the market. Its net profit dropped from $13.32 billion in 2010 to only $5.39 billion last year. Rio announced the result late yesterday after the Australian market closed, but the group's London-listed shares dropped 2 per cent on opening last night. Away from the massive write-downs, Rio's underlying earnings jumped to $14.4 billion for the year to December, up from a...
Russia exported in 2011 3.419 million metric tons of aluminum, an increase of 2.4% compared with the 2010, the federal customs service reported Tuesday. The exported aluminum was worth $7.158 billion compared with $6.021 billion in 2010. Aluminum export to countries outside the Commonwealth of Independent States in 2010 totaled 3.377 million tons worth $7.062 billion. Aluminum exports to CIS states totaled 41,500 tons worth $96.1 million.
Global miner Rio Tinto took an $8.9 billion charge on its struggling aluminium business on Thursday, triggering a second-half net loss amid a gloomy medium-term outlook for the metal. Five straight years of surpluses in aluminium and rising input costs have hammered margins in the industry, sharply reducing the book value of Rio's Alcan unit, purchased for $38 billion at the height of the commodities boom in 2007. The write-off and losses prompted Chief Executive Tom Albanese and Chief Financial Officer Guy Elliott to forego their bonuses. "As the acquisition of Alcan happened on my watch, I felt it only right not to be considered for an annual bonus this year," Albanese said. Total one-off charges including a writedown on its diamonds business totalled $9.3 billion, causing net results...
