Iron ore rises on pre-holiday restocking, China stimulus hopes
"Winter restocking of iron ore among steel mills is still underway, so we believe ore prices will find some support in the near term," analyst says.
BEIJING, March 21 (Reuters) – Aluminum Corp of China , known as Chalco, increased net profit by 274 percent last year as supply-side reforms and an environmental crackdown lifted aluminium prices.
Chalco, the listed arm of state-run aluminium producer Chinalco, made net income of 1.38 billion yuan ($218 million) last year, against a revised net profit of 368.4 million yuan in 2016, it said in a filing to the Shanghai stock exchange on Thursday.
Revenue came in at 180.1 billion yuan, up from an adjusted 144.2 billion yuan a year earlier, it said.
The company had said in January that 2017 net profit would rise 239 percent year on year to 1.36 billion yuan, citing supply-side reform, environmental measures and cost cuts.
However, fourth-quarter net profit was much smaller than in previous quarters, with Shanghai aluminium prices down almost 9 percent over the final three months of 2017 because winter supply cuts in China were less severe than expected.
The company reported net profit of 38.9 million yuan in the final three months of 2017, down from 599.1 million yuan in the previous quarter – its smallest gain since the first quarter of 2016, according to Reuters records.
Chalco was spared from aluminium production cuts during the winter, though it did reduce output of alumina, the main raw material used to produce the metal.
Shanghai aluminium prices have continued to fall this year and are hovering at about 14,000 yuan a tonne. At that level, most smelters are losing money, industry sources say.
($1 = 6.3295 Chinese yuan renminbi)
(Reporting by Tom Daly and Min Zhang; Editing by David Goodman)
