Rusal will Reboot Aluminum Program after First-Quarter Gains

Rusal, the Russian aluminum company, plans to continue building its newest Siberian plant after generating a significant amount of revenue upon the introduction of better aluminum prices.

The company has consistently made $434 million in profit this year, nearly three times as much as it did in 2016, reinforcing its status as second-biggest aluminum production enterprise in the world. The improvement is mainly due to more sales and raised prices of the versatile metal. Its supply may struggle to appease demand in the next quarter, however.

Riding on its success, Rusal declared it would restart operations at its smelting plant in Taishet, which the board of directors has agreed to finance. Rusal has received a total of $38.5 million from them, a modest but sufficient amount for the job.

The company sees this as a great triumph, as the Taishet smelter construction began ten years ago but couldn’t be finished due to lack of funds and aluminum price reduction.

With Rusal’s two smelters in Siberia, En+, the Russian energy giant, expects Rusal to grow its production capacity one million tonnes more by 2022. En+’s profits before taxes and interest in 2016 was $2.3 billion, of which $1.5 billion Rusal contributed to. En+’s alternate companies contributed to the remaining $822 million.

Rusal experienced a more than 5% increase in demand annually, hiking it up to fifteen tonnes in the first quarter of 2017. Worldwide aluminum supply increased by almost 8% to just short of fifteen tonnes, indicating the aluminum market is where it should be.

Taking into account price raises and demand increases, the aluminum industry will likely experience continued success in the years to come.

Source: https://aaluminum.com/

The US Encourages Europe and Britain to Criticize China’s Aluminum Imports

The United States’ aluminum market heads are asking those of the European Union and Britain to help stop China’s problematic taxes in the industry, which have begun to affect jobs in North America.

China is suspected of breaking the World Trade Organization’s rules by illegally financing prominent market sectors, particularly the aluminum market. Despite the country’s claim that it respects the policies of the World Trade Organization, the US has begun to investigate whether its imported products are negatively affecting its safety.

Theresa May, Britain’s Prime Minister, has received a letter from the aluminum industry encouraging her to take action, insisting that the country’s future will be more secure if it does its part to reinforce the World Trade Organization. Office representatives have not yet responded.

Industry leaders in Belgium and Russia are also participating in the discussion, realizing the urgency of the issue as China produces more aluminum than any other country worldwide, contributing to half of the globe’s total production. It contributed to a mere tenth of the world’s aluminum manufacturing in 2001. Meanwhile, the number of European aluminum plants has decreased by more than one-third from 2002 to 2015, and a Kentucky plant suffered financial losses in the first quarter of 2016.

China has begun to incur bigger charges for energy usage than Europe and the US, while Europe seeks to continue its smelting for the purpose of providing jobs to factory workers and maintaining high market value. The former simply isn’t beneficial for international business.

An upcoming meeting in Brussels among EU trade leaders will decide how the World Trade Organization will handle China’s aluminum debacle and could put new policies into place.

Source: https://aaluminum.com/