Insight

Aluminium smelter cutbacks: kicking the can further down the road

25 August 2015

This report is currently unavailable

Contact us

Submit your details to receive further information about this report.

First name
Last name
Job Title
Company
Email
Telephone

Region

Message

Consent

Please keep me informed about Wood Mackenzie products, services and events.

For details on how your data is used and stored, see our Privacy Notice.

- Available as part of a subscription
- FAQ's about online orders

25 August 2015

Aluminium smelter cutbacks: kicking the can further down the road

Report summary

The LME aluminium price continued its descent in August 2015 falling to a multi-year low of $1485/t mainly due to weaker demand growth expectations and relentless oversupply in China. The rapidly falling all-in-price is now cutting deeper into the cost curve forcing the industry to curtail production. Our analysis suggests that apart from the 1.2Mt curtailments from Chinese smelters in the top quartile in 2015, another 4.3Mt of Chinese production is vulnerable to temporary closures.

Executive Summary
Cost curve under scrutiny
Boom and bust
Producer response so far in 2015
China versus China
What's different now versus the GFC
Conclusion

Tables and charts

This report includes 8 images and tables including:

Global 2015 C1 cash + sustaining capex cost curve and the all-in price
2008 C1 Cost Curves highlighting average November – December 2008 aluminium cash prices
Production changes for select provinces since July 2015 (kt)