United Company Rusal, the world’s second-largest aluminium company by primary production, posted that its primary aluminium output in the whole year of 2019 remained flat at 3.757 million tonnes, in contrast to 3.756 million tonnes in 2018. In the fourth quarter of the year, the growth in primary aluminium output was marginal. From 942,000 tonnes in Q3, the production grew to 949,000 tonnes in Q4, up by about 1 per cent.
Production of Rusal’s aluminium foil and packaging products remained flat in Q4 2019 at 25,000 tonnes, but in the whole year increased by 10.2 per cent from 89,000 tonnes in 2018 to 98,000 tonnes.
Aluminium sales in Q4 totalled at 1.107 million tonnes, up 1.5 per cent from 1.091 million tonnes in Q3. During that period, sales of value-added products (VAP) increased to 443,000 tonnes, registering a growth of 3.1 per cent quarter-on-quarter. The regional sales geography remained largely unchanged compared to the previous quarter with European destination (55 per cent) still dominating the mix. Although in Russia and America, sales slightly increased in share to 24 per cent and 7 per cent, respectively.
In the whole year, Rusal’s aluminium sales stood 13.8 per cent higher at 4.176 million tonnes, compared with 3.671 million tonnes in 2018. This growth was primarily due to partial sell down of surplus inventories of primary aluminium that were accumulated by the end of 2018, as a result of OFAC Sanctions and full launch of the first potline of the Boguchansky aluminium smelter (BoAZ) in March 2019. VAP sales amounted to 1,547 thousand tonnes (-7.0% YoY). The share of VAP sales in total was 37 per cent.
For the full year, share of Europe in the regional sales mix increased to 54 per cent. The average aluminium realised price decreased by 15 per cent Y-o-Y to US$ 1,920 per tonne, following the bearish price trend on the London Metal Exchange. The LME price declined over the year by 15.3 per cent to US$ 1,785 per tonne.
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