The Chinese spot alumina price could rise over the course of 2019 despite new capacity planned this year due to new downstream aluminium projects which outpace the raw material's capacity expansion, Fastmarkets learned during LME Asia Week in Hong Kong this week.
China is projected to add 5.4 million tonnes of new alumina capacity this year, a year-on-year rise of 69% from 3.2 million tonnes of new capacity the year before, according to a speaker at an aluminium seminar during LME Asia Week. At the same time, new aluminium projects including capacity swap and capacity replacement, have been under construction since the beginning of this year.Chinese aluminium capacity is forecast to rise by 8.6% or 3.45 million of tonnes to 43.05 million tonnes this year from total capacity of 39.6 million tonnes at the end of 2018, Fastmarkets MB aluminium analyst Cao Yang said on Thursday May 9. This means aluminium smelters may need an extra 8.63 million tonnes of alumina to secure their production expansion schedule based on the typical aluminium production formula of 2.5 tonnes of alumina required...