Production of primary aluminium in China was 850,000t in October, according to figures from the China Non-Ferrous Metals Industry Association carried on the IAI's website.
That represented year-on-year growth of 24.6%, the highest rate yet seen over the course of 2006.
The latest re-acceleration of growth is also clear to see in the jump in daily average production to 27,419t in October.
The strong inference from the country's production figures over the last couple of months is that idled capacity is being restarted thanks to the sharp fall in the alumina price.
The latter is a function of China's soaring production of the raw material. Production of 1.235 million in October itself represented year-on-year growth of 60%, while cumulative production of 10.745 million tonnes over Jan-Oct 2006 was up by 54% year-on-year.
That has not only provoked something of a price-cutting war between major suppliers such as Chalco and Minmetals but has significantly closed the production-consumption shortfall filled by imports.
Using a 2:1 formula for the amount of alumina needed to make one tonne of primary metal, we estimate the shortfall was 4.353 million tonnes in Jan-Oct, down from 5.953 million tonnes in the same period of 2005.
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