BEIJING- China’s aluminum production fell 1.6 percent from a year earlier in September, official data showed, as ongoing outages at two key smelters leave the world’s top aluminum producer struggling to register annual output growth.
China churned out 2.90 million tons of the metal last month, the National Bureau of Statistics said, down 2.5 percent from 2.973 million tons in August.
Top producer China Hongqiao Group’s facilities were hit by flooding on Aug. 11, and Xinfa Group also closed pot lines due to an explosion a week later, meaning September was the first full month with those lines shutdown. Smelting lines usually take several months to fully resume production.
The daily average output still managed to climb to 96,700 tons per day in September, according to Reuters calculations, up from about 95,900 tons per day in August, which has one more day. The September daily rate was the highest since June. — Reuters
