Russian aluminium production growth starts picking up

Russia’s production of aluminium rose by 4.0% year-on-year to 318,038t in April, according to figures from local consultancy Aluminiy.

Cumulative production over the Jan-Apr 2007 period rose by 3.0% to 1,260,474t. That marks a further pick-up in national production growth, which has tended to run at around 2% in the last couple of years, reflecting capacity creep through technology upgrades of the smelter network.

That capacity creep is continuing but the boost to Russian production is coming from the gradual ramp-up of UC RUSAL’s new 300,000tpy Khakaz smelter.

The commissioning of the greenfield smelter began last December and is scheduled to continue all the way through to November. The company has projected plant output at 234,000t this year.

The country’s production of alumina also grew by 3.0% year-on-year to 1,087,651t in the first four months of 2007.