Yunnan Aluminium’s 500,000 tonnes per year smelting and hydropower project comes online

Yunnan Aluminium’s 500,000 tonnes per year smelting and hydropower project in China’s new smelting hub of Wenshan has officially started its operation, said the local government on Monday, May 19.

The launch ceremony of the project, held on Friday, May 15, was attended by Yunnan province vice governor Dong Hua, according to a statement on the Wenshan prefecture website. The project uses hydropower for the energy-intensive smelting process.

Wenshan in southern Yunnan near the Vietnam border is set to become a major aluminium smelting hub. Key aluminium producers like China Hongqiao Group have moved their capacity in Wenshan to take advantage of cleaner hydropower available there.

In early May, the Phase I electrolytic tanks of the project came online. The Phase I capacity contained 62 electrolytic tanks, which were 500KA new integrated prebaked anode aluminium electrolytic cells.

The launch of Yunnan Aluminium’s new project has taken the producer’s annual capacity above 2.5 million tonnes, according to the report. Yunnan Aluminium is under state-run Chinese aluminium Group Chinalco.

The total estimated investment required for this project was more than RMB 4 billion.

However, it is not clear yet how quickly the project will ramp up China’s total aluminium production. Last month, China’s daily aluminium output stood around 99,000 tonnes, the highest since June 2019.