Aluminum prices may slowly pick up

It is said that in 2013 China's economy will continue its momentum of short-term recovery, but it will be difficult to return to the era of more than 9% growth rate before 2008, and aluminum consumption will slowly rise. In particular, infrastructure will boost aluminum consumption, but capacity expansion But it is more prominent. At the same time, due to the high dependence on bauxite, the price of imported bauxite continues to increase, which brings additional pressure on the electrolytic aluminum industry in addition to electricity costs. From the price point, due to the rising cost, the cost-driven upward movement of prices, but due to excess capacity, the space above the price is also limited, and the expected operating range is between 15500-16200 yuan.

Bauxite has high external dependence

With the rapid development of China's aluminum industry, the domestic bauxite resource gap is increasing, while the domestic bauxite mining costs are relatively high and the quality is low, resulting in the domestic bauxite mining production capacity is difficult to expand, which requires from Import a lot of bauxite abroad. The data shows that as early as November 2011, the gross margin for aluminum mining was reduced to -2.15%, while the gross profit margin for August 2011 was still as high as 22.07%. Statistics show that in 2011, the price of alumina was around 2,800 yuan/ton, and there was no guarantee that the bauxite mining gross margin was positive. After Indonesia raised the export tariffs on bauxite, domestic import prices also rose simultaneously, which further increased the import costs of domestic alumina companies. In October, the average price of imported bauxite from Indonesia was 52.36 U.S. dollars per ton, a year-on-year growth of 19.86%, and the cost of alumina production using imported bauxite was around 120 yuan per ton.

The pace of capacity expansion has never stopped

Although there was a loss in the electrolytic aluminum industry, the pace of capacity expansion did not stop. From the perspective of the westward development of the industry, the energy and electricity prices in the eastern and central regions have continued to climb. Electrolytic aluminum companies have also advanced westwards. As of the end of 2011, the proposed capacity for construction in Xinjiang alone was as high as 11.05 million tons. On the other hand, due to the imperfection of the industrial exit mechanism in the eastern and eastern provinces, the production capacity of electrolytic aluminum in the central and eastern regions has not been reduced, resulting in the development of electrolytic aluminum production capacity. East does not refund." According to relevant data, the electrolytic aluminum production capacity in 2012 will reach 28 million tons, and it is expected to exceed 30 million tons in 2013.

Demand for slowdown in outdated production capacity is picking up

Finally, due to the slowdown in the elimination of backward production capacity due to the “stabilizing growth” in various regions, in 2012, the first batch of non-ferrous metal industries eliminated the backward production capacity list, involving only 9 enterprises of electrolytic aluminum, 271,600 tons of production capacity, many of which were in 2011. The electrolytic cell has been shut down; and the second batch of non-ferrous metal outdated production capacity projects in 2012 did not involve the backward production capacity of electrolytic aluminum. From a consumer perspective, the cumulative apparent domestic consumption of electrolytic aluminum in January-October reached 16.6666 million tons, a year-on-year growth rate of 12.98%, but deducted 1.4 million tons of domestic aluminum stocks, the actual consumption was only 14.2666 million tons, an increase of 7.2% over the same period of last year %about. In December, which is a seasonal off-season, consumption in the whole year of 2012 was only 15.7 million tons, and the growth rate may fall back to 7%. It is expected that there will be a mild recovery in demand in 2013, but consumption growth will not exceed 8%.