South32 achieves record production at Brazil Alumina; Worsley Alumina output up 3% in 9M YTD20

Mining company South32 reported alumina production of 3.911 million tonnes in the nine months ended March 2020, compared to 3.743 million tonnes in the nine months ended March 2019. That was down 4 per cent year-on-year. In Q3 FY20, alumina production stood at 1.276 million tonnes, down 4 per cent quarter-on-quarter.

Worsley Alumina saleable production increased by 3 per cent to 2.869 million tonnes in the nine months ended March 2020 “as the refinery benefitted from improvement initiatives expected to support a sustainable increase in production to nameplate capacity of 4.6Mt (100% basis)”.

Sales from Worsley Alumina fell 12 per cent to 860,000 tonnes during the March 2020 quarter. That was due to scheduled calciner maintenance impacted production, and a shipment slipped to the June 2020 quarter as a result of COVID-19 quarantine delays at port.

“Subject to existing or additional COVID-19 restrictions or measures having no impact during the remainder of the financial year, FY20 production is expected to approach guidance of 3,965kt with no further material calciner maintenance scheduled,” the company said.

Brazil Alumina saleable production rose 10 per cent to a record 1.042 million tonnes in the nine months ended March 2020 “as the refinery benefitted from improved steam generation, enabling the benefits of the De-bottlenecking Phase One project to be realised.”

“Following a review of activity in response to market conditions and an update to our assumptions for foreign exchange rates over the remainder of FY20, guidance for sustaining capital expenditure is unchanged at US$35M,” South32 said.