TALCO, produces 11.6 percent less metal in January-April 2012

Tajikistan's state-owned aluminium smelter, the largest in former Soviet Central Asia, hopes a resumption of gas supplies from Uzbekistan will allow it to meet its 2012 output target despite a near-12 percent decline in the first four months.

Tajikistan Aluminium Company, or TALCO, produced 97,863 tonnes of the metal in January-April 2012, or 11.6 percent less than in the same four months last year, a source close to the company's management told Reuters on Friday.

The main reason for the decline was lower monthly production rates in early 2012 as the smelter ramped up output following a modernisation programme completed toward the end of last year.

Production was also affected in April when neighbouring Uzbekistan cut off natural gas supplies for 15 days. Tajikistan signed a deal to resume supplies from April 16 until the end of the year.

"The signing of the contract until the end of the current year gives us hope that we will meet our plans," said the TALCO source, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

TALCO is sticking to its plan to produce 332,500 tonnes of primary aluminium this year, the source said, which would restore production approximately to 2010 levels after a 20 percent decline to 277,584 tonnes in 2011.

The smelter's production is crucial to the economy of Tajikistan, the poorest of 15 former Soviet republics. The metal accounted for 45.1 percent of Tajikistan's export revenues in the first quarter of 2012.