Global demand for aluminum will grow by 2% to 67.5 mln tonnes this year, Russia’s Rusal company said in its report released at the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on Friday.
“We expect global demand for primary aluminum to grow by 2% year-on-year in 2019, to 67.5 mln tonnes, and there will be a deificit of around 0.7-0.8 mln tonnes on the market,” Rusal said.
The company noted that in the first half of 2019, growth rates of global demand for aluminum were low due to economic problems and uncertainty. In the first six months of 2019, global aluminum production grew by 1% to 31.9 mln tonnes.
“While we observed positive trends of small growth on the aluminum market in the first half of 2019, the situation worsened in the second half of 2019, and demand for aluminum fell,” Rusal stated.
“Uncertainty on the market over tensions in trade between China and the United States, together with global decrease in manufacturing activity, may negatively impact demand for aluminum in the second half of 2019,” the report reads.