The Malaysian government recently decided to suspend bauxite mining for three months to protect environment. As the Chinese aluminum industry is faced with production cut and sluggish demand, the fall in bauxite imports will not have a significant effect on Chinese manufacturers, said analysts.
The Chinese enterprises heavily relying on bauxite imports from Malaysia are planning to cut production, which will directly weaken their demands for the Malaysian bauxites and the domestic producers can fill the gap through other channels, said Zhang Rufeng, an analyst of baiinfo.com.
Malaysia exported 2.54 million metric tons (tonnes) of bauxite to China in November, 2015. Since the beginning of November, 2015, China's alumina enterprises have started to cut production.
By the end of December, they accumulatively cut output by nearly 5 million tonnes. By the end of 2015, China's alumina capacity under operation reached 52.53 million tonnes, down 2.65 percent year on year, according to statistics of the baiinfo.com.
As Indonesia banned its bauxite from being exported at the beginning of 2014, China's bauxite imports from Malaysia surged.
In the first 11 months of 2015, China imported 20.496 million tonnes of bauxite from Malaysia, up 700 percent year on year, accounting for 42 percent of the country's total imports.
Latest comments