Rusal, the world’s largest aluminium producer, says it has no plan to restart this year smelting capacity idled in the past two years due to oversupply, and that it expects stable output and favourable prices of the lightweight industrial metal.
“The company does not plan to restart the aluminium smelters idled in 2013/2014 due to the current market environment, so [as] to maintain production discipline,” the Russian firm said in a filing to Hong Kong’s stock exchange on Friday.
The company said its aluminium output fell 7 per cent last year to 3.6 million tonnes. Fourth-quarter production grew 1 per cent from the third quarter to 915,000 tonnes.
The share of “value-added products” accounted for 45 per cent of total aluminium production, from 42 per cent in 2013.
Average selling price rose 3 per cent last year from 2013 to US$2,219 a tonne. Fourth-quarter average price grew 5 per cent to US$2,425 a tonne from the third quarter.
Rusal’s share price traded 1.9 per cent higher at HK$5.29 as of 10.50am on Friday, outperforming the Hang Seng Index’s 0.1 per cent gain at the time.