Companies favouring more sustainability – profitability-wise

摘要

For the first nine months of 2019 the International Aluminium Institute (IAI) reports a production of 47.5m tonnes of primary aluminium. That is a slight downturn compared with the same period in 2018, amounting to almost half a million tonnes. In percentage terms that is not really very much, approx. one percent, but compared with the sharp increase of production in earlier years it is striking. The largest production cutbacks y-o-y took place in China (almost 400 kt) and Western Europe (200 kt), whereas in the Gulf region production increases of 100 kt were notified. This fits with an aBumption by Alcoa that over the whole year of 2019 there will be a (slight) global supply shortfall of 0.8-1.2m tonnes instead of the 1.0-1.4m tonnes forecast in the previous quarter.