China’s Xinfa cuts alumina output amid bauxite squeeze

* Xinfa Group, one of China’s top aluminium producers, has reduced output at its alumina plant in southern China’s Guangxi region due to tight bauxite supply, according to a company official and a consultancy.

* Production has been reduced by 500,000 tonnes on an annual basis, said the Xinfa official, who put the plant’s total capacity at 3 million tonnes per year.

* Consultancy Baiinfo said the daily production rate at the Xinfa plant had gone down from 7,600 tonnes to 6,100 tonnes.

* The production cut would be in place for at least one month, said the official from Xinfa, a privately held company with aluminium smelters in Shandong and Xinjiang.

* Bauxite is a rock refined to produce alumina, which is then used to make aluminium metal.

(By Tom Daly)