Chalco already lining up

Barely a week after the CNIA meeting in Kunming, and the announcement that no new capacity would enter the market for 12 months, Chalco is already at the head of the queue to bring new capacity on line.

Chalco’s Baotou smelter in Inner Mongolia is set to release 500,000t of new capacity in January 2017. That will add to the 550,000t that the plant is currently producing.

That queue is set to get a lot longer. Subscribers to our monthly Pipeline Report will see in next month’s edition that there are other plants and potlines waiting in the wings.

Or will they wait? A year is a long time if you have poured millions into building a brand new plant. It will be an interesting test of character over the next 12 months - will the promises of the 14 smelters at the Kunming hold true for all players? Will it hold true even for those who were at the meeting? If the metal price starts getting back up over RMB 12,000/t, trigger fingers will start itching.