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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PORTLAND'S aluminium smelter has escaped the knife for now as international giant Alcoa today announced it was considering curtailing its Point Henry operation near Geelong. Alcoa's Australian managing director Alan Cransberg said Point Henry had become unprofitable and production may be cut back in the face of continuing difficult global economic conditions. At stake are the jobs of 600 employees. It has a 55 per cent stake in Portland Aluminium which employs 570. The best assurance The Standard could ascertain on the south-west smelter's future was "we will need to manage through some significant economic challenges in order to remain viable". "Portland faces the same market conditions as Point Henry," community relations officer Amy Blundell said. "Portland is a more modern facility...
Aluminium yesterday traded with the range bound node and settled 0% flat at 109.9 tracking LME three-month aluminum initially hit USD 2,299/mt on Wednesday but closed down USD 3.5/mt or 0.16% at USD 2,251.5/mt due to worries towards worsening of the Greek debt crisis. LME aluminum stocks climbed further overnight, by over 10,000 mt to above 5.03 million mt, a record high. While demand stays weak, climbing stocks mean LME aluminum is facing heavier pressure. China will announce its CPI data for January today, trading will be cautious ahead of its release. During early US and European trading session as China's central bank vowed to support the country's property market, a move seen by investors as a signal of big demand from the world's largest Copper consumer. However, Greek debt talks...
The Tiwai Point aluminium smelter is among a group of Rio Tinto assets which has had its valuation cut by more than 30 per cent. The Wall Street Journal reported that Deutsche Bank analysts had valued Pacific Aluminium, the business unit made up of five Australian smelters and Tiwai, at US$4.4 billion (NZ$5.3b). Four months ago the group was valued at US around 6.5bUSD. Rio Tinto is due to report on its finances today and analysts said it could be "an interesting write-down of its Pacific Aluminium assets". The Journal reported that Rio Tinto did not see this as a "forced seller" of Pacific Aluminium, and there was still plenty of time for the aluminium price to recover. Paul Young, of Deutsche Bank, assumed the Pacific Aluminium business would be divested by the first half of 2013, the...
United Co. Rusal, the world’s biggest aluminum producer, rose for the third day in Hong Kong trading as the company expects demand for the silver-colored metal to keep increasing. The shares climbed 6.4 percent to HK$6.82 as of the midday close, bringing their gains this year to 39 percent. That beats the 13 percent increase in the benchmark Hang Seng index. Manufacturers are increasingly switching to aluminum, used in electric cables and wires, after copper climbed to almost four times the price of the light metal, Rusal’s Deputy Chief Executive Officer Oleg Mukhamedshin said in an interview in Moscow. Aluminum has risen 12 percent in London after slumping 18 percent last year as Europe’s sovereign-debt crisis spread and the world economic recovery stalled. Three-month delivery aluminum...
Aluminium company Vimetco could receive a EUR 207 million loan from the European Bank for Construction and Development (EBRD) to build a new gas-fired cogeneration power plant in Tulcea, Romania. If Vimetco Power Romania gets the EBRD loan, which is pending final review and would cover 75 percent of the project costs, it would become the first project finance transaction in private conventional power generation in Romania. The EBRD board is scheduled to meet in May 2012, when the results of the final review are expected. If the project is approved the 250 MWe/195 MWth power plant should be built and commissioned between 2012 and 2014. The power and the heat produced by the EUR 276 million plant will be sold on the Romanian market, as well as cover part of the needs of the Vimetco group in...
National Aluminium Co Ltd (Nalco) will start investing equity into its joint venture with Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd (NPCIL) from the current quarter. Nalco would invest Rs300 crore this quarter in the JV, which was signed in November 2010 to set up nuclear plants in the country. Under its first project, the venture plans to set up units 3 & 4 of the Kakrapar nuclear plant in Gujarat. Each unit will have a capacity of 700 megawatt (mw) and will entail an investment of around Rs7,000 crore, or Rs3,500 crore per 700 mw. Nalco sees this venture helping it de-risk its business portfolio in the long run while allowing a foray into the evolving nuclear power sector in India. K C Samal, executive director - finance, Nalco, said in a recent analyst conference call that the company had...
Copper has climbed to almost four times the price of aluminum, a record ratio that’s accelerating a switch by manufacturers to using the cheaper metal in electric cables and wires, a United Co. Rusal executive said. Demand for copper is shrinking by about 400,000 tons a year through substitution, or 2 percent of global use, according to Oleg Mukhamedshin, deputy chief executive officer of Rusal, the world’s largest aluminum producer, who cited market data the company uses in its forecasts. “More than half of this loss is to aluminum,” Mukhamedshin said in an interview in Moscow. “With copper prices at a record, further substitution is expected.” The shift is helping the silver-colored metal rise this year after its average price slid 7 percent since 2006. That should increase revenue for...
Aluminum will be in shortage in 2014 for the first time since at least 2005 as copper moves into surplus, Barclays Capital said. The aluminum shortage will be 33,000 metric tons against a surplus of 224,000 tons this year and 336,000 tons next year, Barclays said in a report e-mailed today. Copper will have the first surplus since at least 2005 in 2014, at 121,000 tons comapred with a shortage of 376,000 tons this year and 7,000 tons next year, according to the report. Barclays forecasts copper will average $9,000 a ton this year and aluminum $2,313 a ton.
Aluminium yesterday traded with the negative node and settled -0.78% down at 108.15 as pressure had seen as LME aluminum stocks surged by over 30,000 mt overnight to above 5 million mt, damping market sentiment. Greece failed to agree on an austerity plan, postponing the reform meeting until today as it seeks financial aid. A rebound in worries towards Greek defaults weighed on the euro and induced losses in commodities. LME aluminum positions dropped 4,500 lots during European trading due to profit taking by longs, dragged LME aluminum price to USD 2,209.5/mt. Though the euro recovered losses at the tail of trading, high stocks still led to a USD 37.5/mt or 1.66% drop in LME aluminum price, which closed at USD 2,118/mt. Cautiousness will be seen in today’s markets as Greeks vote over...
SINGAPORE: LME aluminium will revisit the Tuesday low of $2,207 per tonne, as the retracement from the Jan. 31 high of $2,310 will continue. The rise on Tuesday is classified as a part of the wave "b", which is the second leg of a three-wave cycle. A Fibonacci retracement on the fall from $2,310 to $2,191 confirms the wave "b" has completed at $2,264, the 61.8 percent level. The third leg, the wave "c", could have started towards $2,190, the 61.8 percent Fibonacci projection level. A rise above $2,264 will be limited to $2,282, the 76.4 percent retracement. 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...
The impact of higher raw material costs and lower aluminium prices resulted in an 80% drop in profit for Nalco. And even though the price of aluminium has improved since the beginning of January, it is still significantly lower than the same period last year. This leaves the country's largest aluminium producer with little choice but to curtail production in the coming months in an environment where input costs remain high. The sharp drop in LME aluminium prices has made it unviable for several aluminium producers across the globe to operate forcing them to partially shut down smelters. This is because the cost of production, mainly the cost of power, remains high, hurting margins of all producers, including the cheapest producers like Nalco. With the cost of coal higher by almost 50% and...
Alba's role as a strategic partner representing the aluminium sector at the Gulf Industry Fair 2012 underscores the company's commitment to support initiatives that showcase Bahrain's aluminium sector as well as highlight Bahrain's attractiveness as an investor-friendly destination. The aluminium sector not only includes aluminium production as represented by Alba but also provides opportunities for downstream companies to promote their products and services such as accessories and fittings, bars, billets, cables, ceiling and wall panels, coated coils, automobile parts, extrusion profiles, foils, grills, pastes, posers, rods, slugs, tubes, wheels, windows, floors and kitchens. Present at the opening day of the trade event was Alba chairman Mahmood Al Kooheji, chief executive Laurent...
Oleg Deripaska spent the best part of his Moscow working days in 2009 in what he called a "war room," dealing with Russia's biggest-ever corporate-debt restructuring. Three years on, and aluminum and energy producer United Co. Rusal PLC still has a war room, but the work being carried out there is significantly different. "That first war room was about what we could achieve in nine months; now it's about what we can achieve in three years," Mr. Deripaska, Rusal's chief executive, says. At the end of 2009, when it completed its restructuring, Rusal, which produces aluminum, a metal used in transportation, packaging and construction, had debts of $16.8 billion. By the end of September 2011, this had been cut to $10.9 billion through repayments and tough cost-cutting programs throughout its...
Alcoa of Australia Ltd., jointly owned by Alcoa Inc. and Alumina Ltd., may cut production at its Point Henry aluminum smelter in the state of Victoria as global economic conditions “severely” hurt the industry. A review of the smelter’s future will be completed by the end of June, the unit of the largest U.S. producer said today in a statement. The aluminum rolling mill at Point Henry and Anglesea power station aren’t part of the review, it said. “A combination of factors, including metal prices, input costs and exchange rates, have resulted in the Point Henry smelter becoming unprofitable,” Alan Cransberg, managing director of the local unit, said in today’s statement. Alcoa Inc., which last month reported its first loss in two years, joins United Co. Rusal and Rio Tinto Group in cutting...
Rio Tinto Alcan will restart the two suspended lines of production at its 100kt/y Shawinigan smelter in Quebec, Canada to bring the plant back to full production. A major power outage on December 29, 2011 forced the closure of two of the plant's four production lines. The process of gradually restarting the 280 cells that were shut down will begin over the coming days and should be completed in Q2 2012. The power cut was caused by a circuit breaker failure leaving Shawinigan without the power needed to operate at full capacity. The Shawinigan smelter was commissioned in 1941 and employs 450 people. It uses Söderberg technology, which is to be phased out of all Quebec primary aluminium smelters by December 31, 2014 at the latest, in compliance with Quebec environmental regulations.
LME three-month aluminum initially hit USD 2,299/mt on Wednesday but closed down USD 3.5/mt or 0.16% at USD 2,251.5/mt due to worries towards worsening of the Greek debt crisis. LME aluminum stocks climbed further overnight, by over 10,000 mt to above 5.03 million mt, a record high. While demand stays weak, climbing stocks mean LME aluminum is facing heavier pressure. China will announce its CPI data for January today, trading will be cautious ahead of its release. SMM expects LME aluminum to struggle at the 10-day moving average and move between USD 2,230-2,280/mt during today’s trading. The most active SHFE three-month aluminum contract is expected to hover between RMB 16,200-16,300/mt as it tries to break deadlock at the 10-day moving average. Spot discounts over the SHFE current-month...
Midwest spot market aluminum premiums for prompt delivery were up at the start of the year, underpinned by a healthier demand outlook and persistent cash-and-carry deals at the warehouses that have choked off spot metal flows, sources told Reuters. A series of output cuts last month at various North American smelters further squeezed the already tight market at the start of the year. With metal scarce, many consumers are in the spot market looking to rebuild depleted inventories ahead of what is expected to be a good year across many aluminum manufacturing industries. "It's the cut-backs in Canada and the lack of import due to the long-term cash-and-carry deals. In Detroit, you cannot get metal out of it for the first six months of the year ... that's causing an immediate problem," said a...
Russia exported 3.419 million metric tons of aluminum in 2011, 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.
