Fears of escalating political unrest across the Middle East and North Africa will not put off investment in new aluminium projects in the region, industry experts say.
Gulf states in particular are expected to become an increasingly important aluminium supply source as new smelters start up and others are planned. "If there is any fear from the investors side now, this will only be temporary and they will come back again," said Mahmood Daylami, general secretary of the Gulf Aluminum Council.
"So far there are no signs of investors pulling out of any [aluminium] projects." The Gulf is one of the few areas, outside top producer China, where aluminium output is rising, benefiting from ready availability of cheap power for the energy-intensive smelting process.
High power costs have forced the idling of a large amount of smelter capacity in the United States and Europe over the years. It was too early to say whether projects in the Middle East might be derailed, according to Olivier Masson of industry consultants CRU Group.
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