Russia's Rusal produced 883,000 mt of aluminum in the first quarter of 2014, down 12.3% year on year, mainly due to output cuts and mothballed production at certain smelters in Europe and the Urals, the company said Tuesday.
Value added products such as billet, slab and alloys accounted for 44% of the total production, compared to 40% a year ago.
Alumina output was up 0.2% year on year at 1.8 million mt, and bauxite up 2.6% over the same period at 2.8 million mt.
Aluminum sales volume in the first quarter totalled 854,000 mt, down 14.1% year on year, and revenue was $2.1 billion, down 20.8%.
In Q1 2014, the London Metal Exchange aluminum price continued to fall and reached $1,708/mt, the lowest recorded since Q2 2009, and down 14.7% from Q1 2013, the world's largest aluminum producer said.
"This negative trend was compensated by historically high premiums of $336/mt in Q1," Rusal said.
The Q1 premiums jumped from $277/mt in Q4 2013 and $264/mt in Q1 2013.
"Aluminum premiums will remain strong in 2014 due to physical market tightness," it said.
Rusal forecasts that global demand will continue to grow and is expected to increase by 6% from 2013, reaching 55 million mt in 2014, primarily driven by China and other Asian countries, the US and the European Union.
The global aluminum deficit, excluding China, is expected to reach 1.2 million mt in 2014 compared with 0.3 million mt in 2013. About 1.5 million-1.6 million mt of the global aluminum production outside of China is expected to be idled in 2014.
