China's top aluminum producer incurs huge loss in H1

BEIJING - The Aluminum Corporation of China Ltd (Chalco), the country's largest smelter of the industrial metal, posted a first-half net loss of 4.123 billion yuan ($669 million), a staggering increase of 3.53 billion yuan from a year earlier.

Operating revenue also lost 4 percent year-on-year to 70.1 billion yuan in the first half of this year, mainly due to a decrease in selling price of its products, the company said in a statement filed to the Shanghai Stock Exchange.

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In the first half of the year, alumina prices continued to fall at home and abroad, given the depressed price of primary aluminum.

Internationally, the average price of spot alumina fell 3.3 percent year-on-year to $322 ton. In China, it lost 3.8 percent to 2,439 yuan, Chalco said.

Chalco, listed in both Shanghai and Hong Kong, is principally engaged in alumina refining, primary aluminum smelting, and trading of related products.

According to the statement, Chalco produced 6 million tons of alumina in the first half, a year-on-year decrease of 1.5 percent. Half-year output of alumina chemicals jumped nearly 20 percent to 910,000 tons, while output of primary aluminum products plunged nearly 20 percent to 1.63 million tons.

In the first half, Chalco said its production and operation were faced with great pressure as the global bulk commodities market has been faltering since the financial crisis in 2008.

For the second half, Chalco said it is still faced with a severe operational problem as the market is far from optimistic. They said they would increase efforts to control losses and increase profits, deepen reform and innovation, and continue conducting operational transformation in the second half.

On Thursday, shares of Chalco fell 1.1 percent in Shanghai and closed unchanged in Hong Kong.