Global Aluminum Demand Seen Up 29% By 2012 - Century

MONTREAL, Sep 10, 2008 (Dow Jones Commodities News via Comtex) －－World aluminum demand is expected to rise by 29% to 53 million metric tons a year by 2012 from around 41 million tons in 2008, Logan Kruger, president and chief executive of Century Aluminum (CENX), said Wednesday. This will require between 40 and 44 new primary aluminum smelters of 250,000 tons a year capacity, Kruger added. Chinese aluminum production has been growing and will continue to do so, he noted, but much of this output has been added in the highest part of the cost curve, Kruger told the Metal Bulletin aluminum conference in Montreal. "This has pushed many of the higher cost producers in North America down into the cost curve," he said, adding that the company's Ravenswood plant was a good example of this. But such high costs are unsustainable in China, he told delegates, with high energy costs and an unwillingness by the government to allow blind investment in the energy-intensive sector already leading to cutbacks there. "China will be a net importer of (aluminum) metal in the medium term," Kruger said. -By Andrea Hotter, Dow Jones Newswires