Singapore 11/07/2016 - China's Aluminium Corporation of China (Chinalco) still aims to lift its aluminium fabricating capacity while extending its fabricating footprint overseas, it said.
Chinalco’s industrial production chain needs to be balanced upstream and downstream and should not be “heavy on the head and light on the feet”, chairman Ge Honglin was cited as saying in a statement on Friday.
Chinalco needs to speed up on using electrolytic aluminium to produce aluminium products and sees potential for aluminium applications in aviation, marine engineering and new-energy automotive, he also said.
The company will make in-roads into aluminium applications and deep-processing via mergers and acquisitions and will look to international co-operation to accelerate its aluminium fabricating plans overseas, he said.
"Chinalco aims to grab hold of opportunities in the trend towards lighter vehicles, rising standards in construction, and aluminium applications in transport and logistics," the company said.
While it did not provide more details, Chinalco expects to lift its fabricating capacity to 1.5 million tonnes per year from the current 1.2 million tonnes per year, SP Angel noted in a report on Monday.
Chinalco expects demand for aluminium products in the auto sector to more than double to 5.3 million tonnes by 2020 from 2.4 million tonnes in 2014, it noted.
According to local reports following a company meeting over the weekend, Chinacol made a profit of 330 million yuan ($49 million) in the first half of this year - the best first half in five years.
Chinalco's listed arm, Aluminium Corp of China (Chalco), posted a net profit of 206.32 million yuan in 2015, reversing a net loss of 16.21 billion yuan in the previous year.
FastMarkets' calls to Chinalco's press relations office were not answered.
(Editing by Mark Shaw)