Continuous increasing price of alumina and activated alumina

2024-11-23

The alumina market has recently attracted widespread attention. From the beginning of this year till now, the supply and demand relationship has been tense, and raw material prices have continued to rise. The shortage of imported bauxite poses a huge challenge to our domestic supply of alumina.

The year-on-year increase in domestic electrolytic aluminum production has further exacerbated the tight supply of alumina. As a major producer of global alumina, China's overall production was affected in 2023 due to the decrease in the production of two major aluminum mines. The current situation of global bauxite are also not optimistic, with China contributing 24% of the production. The mining of bauxite will be constrained by environmental protection, safety, and declining reserves, with limited increase and no hope of resuming production. However, the increase in domestic bauxite is limited, and it is expected that it will be difficult to meet the demand for alumina by the end of 2024. Although the annual production of overseas bauxite has increased, the supply of alumina remains tight in the short term due to factors such as inconvenient transportation and increased rainy season.

From a global market perspective, the global alumina production of last year accounted is from 60% of the Chinese market share. However, as the end of this year approaches, winter heating and environmental issues have led to a significant decrease in the production of several major bauxite mines in China, exacerbating the tight supply and demand of alumina. More alumina projects will be put into operation overseas next year, mainly concentrated in Indonesia and India. However, the actual production capacity may still be difficult to realize due to the supply constraints of bauxite. In the short term, the price of alumina is prone to rise but difficult to fall.