Marubeni Forecasts Global Primary Aluminium Oversupply in 2011

Japanese major general trader, Marubeni Corporation released global primary aluminium supply and demand forecast in 2011, along which the demand is expected to increase by 7.5% to 42.952 million tonnes compared with 2009 while the supply is estimated to increase by 6.2% to 44.246 million tonnes. The supply is forecasted to exceed the demand for 5 straight years while the oversupply range is expected to narrow in 2011 and 2012.

In 2011, Chinese demand for primary aluminium is expected to keep uptrend while the growth rate is forecasted to slow down to one digit. Meanwhile, the demand would increase sharply in other emerging countries such as Brazil. The demand is forecasted to increase by 9.5% to 1.941 million tonnes in Latin America in 2011 compared with 2009 while increase by 7.6% to 5.05 million tonnes in Asia except for Japan and China.

Primary aluminium supply in China is forecasted to increase by 9.5% to 18.278 million tonnes in 2011 compared with 2010. The increasing rate would narrow to one digit due to Chinese government’s policy to regulate electric power supply against large energy consuming industries.

The supply expansion is also expected to slow down in other areas after new smelters enter high operations such as Qatalum, Vedanta and Emal. There is no large aluminium smelting projects after 2011 and, as a result, the global oversupply would be narrowed.