Oleg Mukhamedshin, the company’s head of equity and corporate development, singled out China, calling on the country to follow other global aluminium producers and cut unprofitable output.
According to Mukhamedshin, up to 7Mt of Chinese output is unprofitable out of a projected 2012 total production figure of 22Mt. The rest of the world, he said, has loss-making capacity in the region of 3Mt.
Rusal plans to cut its own production costs, which stood at US$ 1,900 per tonne in Q1, and has delayed investment in its 750Kt Taishet smelter project in Russia’s Irkutsk region until later in the year.