Nov. 15 （Bloomberg） -- United Co. Rusal, the world's largest aluminum company, estimates its aluminum price in the fourth quarter will rise on greater demand from Asia, Chief Executive Officer Oleg Deripaska said.
The price the company charges per ton of aluminum will be $200 higher in the fourth quarter than in the previous three months, Deripaska told reporters in Tokyo yesterday. "We believe our sales price will be $2,500" per ton, he said.
Greater development in China will stimulate demand as consumption in the Asian country gradually increases to 20-22 million tons of aluminum over the next 3 to 4 years, Deripaska said. The same is true of Korea, Japan and Taiwan, he said.
"Aluminum consumption will grow 4 to 5 percent a year in the next 7 to 8 years," he said.
The market for alumina, the raw material for aluminum, has also picked up from last quarter's levels, allowing Rusal to restart its Windalco-Ewarton alumina works in Jamaica in June. "We may consider next year more additional capacity to be put into operation," billionaire Deripaska said.
Rusal isn't interested in selling its 25 percent stake in Russia's OAO GMK Norilsk Nickel, which is set to be worth more than $15 billion by mid-2011, according to Deripaska.
"We have a nice stake, which we do not plan to sell," he said. "We believe Norilsk is worth much more than you have seen already."
Rusal rebuffed a $9 billion offer from billionaire Vladimir Potanin to buy its stake in Norilsk Nickel. Rusal's investment is "viewed as a critical component of Rusal's future strategy of diversification," Nathaniel Rothschild, chairman of EN+ Group, Deripaska's investment company that controls Rusal, said in a statement on Oct. 22.
--With assistance from Ilya Khrennikov in Moscow. Editors: Jeffrey Donovan, Eddie Buckle
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