RUSAL wants to raise ’16 aluminum sales in Russia to 800,000 tns

MOSCOW, Dec 11 (PRIME) -- Aluminum giant UC RUSAL plans to raise production sales in Russia to 800,000 tonnes in 2016 from 750,000–760,000 tonnes in 2015, CEO Vladislav Solovyov told reporters Friday.

The company hopes for a 5–6% growth of demand in 2016, in line with the world trend, although Russia’s aluminum consumption has fallen 11–25% so far, he said.

“I hope that it will grow by 5% on the year, and we hope to raise our sales of 750,000–760,000 tonnes this year, depending on how we weather December, to 800,000 tonnes or even more. We set the target of one million tonnes in 2011, we would like to grow to one million, but it is difficult,” he said.

Solovyov also said that Russia’s union of producers, suppliers and consumers of aluminum thinks that the country has to impose measures to protect the market from Chinese imports.

“I think that this is one of the issues that is worth considering, including protection of local producers from Chinese imports of goods in which the Russian industry is competitive – wheels, household heaters and so on. We should impose measures of protection and not fear the step, but also do it in accordance with existing procedures,” he said.

According to the International Aluminum Institute, China’s aluminum production jumped 17.3% on the year to 26.458 million tonnes in January–October.

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