Alcoa made a record bauxite shipment of 12 million-plus in Q3'20 in tandem with robust production at Huntly and Willowdale mines

Alcoa Corporation made a record third-party shipment of 12 million-plus dry metric tonnes of bauxite during the third quarter of 2020 ended on September 30, backed on robust production year to date at Alcoa’s Huntly and Willowdale bauxite mines. Boosted by this result, Alcoa’s bauxite shipments are expected to range between 48-49 million dry metric tonnes by the end of this year.

But despite the robust shipments, Alcoa’s adjusted EBITDA from bauxite stood down by $7 million quarter-on-quarter. In Q2 2020, Alcoa’s adjusted EBITDA in the bauxite segment was $131 million, which in the Q3 lowered to $124 million.

So far this year, Alcoa’s total third-party shipments of dry metric tonnes bauxite came in at 36.4 million.

Alcoa’s revenue from bauxite in Q3 2020 stood at $292 million, while its third-party revenue from bauxite was $56 million.

Bauxite accounted for 33 per cent of Alcoa’s alumina production costs in the September quarter.

In Q4, the company’s adjusted EBITDA from bauxite is expected to remain flat, primarily due to bauxite trading purchase price.

Alcoa Corporation president and chief executive Roy Harvey praised the company’s efforts to not only maintain stability, but exceed it with record results amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We are doing far more than simply maintaining stability,” Harvey said. “We are setting production records, driving productivity, reducing costs and improving our balance sheet.

“Across all of our segments, we are delivering solid results and continuing to improve overall performance,” he added.

Alcoa owns seven active bauxite mines globally and operates four of them, including the world’s second largest bauxite mine, the Huntly mine in the south-west of Western Australia.

In 2019, Huntly supplied around 27 million tonnes of bauxite to the Pinjarra alumina refinery, which has the capacity to produce more than 4.2 million metric tonnes (3.8 million tonnes) of alumina per year.