Global production of primary aluminium, excluding China, averaged 65,300t per day in September, up from 65,000t in August and from 64,900t in September 2005, according to provisional figures from the International Aluminium Institute (IAI).
As the chart shows, non-China production has been in a broad topping-out pattern since Q3 of last year with production growth slowing to 2% over the Jan-Sep 2006 period from 3.8% over calendar 2005.
We suspect that the slight pick-up in September itself was down to two specific factors. Firstly, as again is evident from the chart, there was a noticeable improvement in North American daily production last month to 14,400t from August’s 14,260t.
That probably reflected the partial restart of a downed potline at Century Aluminum’s Ravenswood smelter. The 42,500tpy line was taken down as part of an orderly shutdown of the plant when a strike looked to be on the cards at the beginning of August. A last-minute deal with the union prevented a walk-out but not before the first of four lines had been closed. Century announced late September it had restarted the affected line, although ramp-up to normal production rates will take until December.
Secondly, another downed line--at Alcan’s ISAL smelter in Iceland--was restored to full capacity last month after being knocked out by a power failure in June. The restart was ahead of schedule and is reflected in the recovery in European daily production to 11,430t in September from a July low of 11,260t.
Behind these two one-off events—and a slight shift down in African production due to the power-related problems with the restart of capacity at the Ghana smelter—is the steady upwards trend in production in the IAI’s Asia category. Daily production in September hit a new record of 9,630t, reflecting expansions at both Persian Gulf producers and continued incremental expansion in India.
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