Russian production still on upwards creep in November

Russian national production of aluminium was 3,398,942t in Jan-Nov, up 1.9% year-on-year, according to the latest figures from the Aluminiy consultancy.

That rate of growth is comparable to last year's 1.5% and reflects continuous capacity creep across the country's smelters due to technology upgrades.

It should start accelerating from this month onwards as RusAl fires up its new 300,000tpy Khakaz smelter. The company announced the start of the process last Friday. Full capacity is scheduled to be reached in November next year.

Russia's production of alumina was 2,984,734t in Jan-Nov, up 0.1% year-on-year. It's the first time that this year's production has overtaken last year's, which reflects the problems at the 250,000tpy Pikalevo refinery early in the year. A protracted dispute with the supplier of the nephelite used as a raw material at Pikalevo led to reduced production over the end of 2005 and the beginning of this year.