Aluminum is the world's most widely used metal after steel, and aluminum is used from the aircraft to the cans. Due to the surge of Chinese demand, copper, iron ore and other commodities brought great wealth to the mining industry, and aluminum has almost entirely missed this round of "super cycle". One ton of aluminum is about 2100 U.S. dollars, almost the same time in 1980, the worst performance in the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to track commodity mining class. During the same period, the price of copper rose nearly threefold, and iron ore prices have gone up eight times.
Decline of Aluminum Profiles Industry
The flourishing days of aluminum profiles manufacturer giants have gone past and the entire aluminum industry faces a series of challenges. The industry, as a whole, is to repeat the same story. The analysts and executives believe that the decline in profitability will rewrite the pattern of the aluminum industry, and forcing traditional manufacturers to cut costs or merger, and it will more highlights the trend of development of China as an aluminum industry power in the near future. Duncan Hobbes, the analyst of Macquarie research team that is responsible for metal commodities said," I will not put my pension into the aluminum industry." Aluminum is cheaper than copper, lighter than steel and malleable better than steel. From the car to the cable, many products need to use this material, which results in aluminum consumption to grow faster than the global economy.
The Rapid Growth of China's Aluminum Production
The copper and iron ore market, because of the demand in China, occurred great changes, and changes in the aluminum market is the phenomenal growth of the Chinese aluminum production. According to the statistics of the International Aluminium Institute, in 2000, only 2.8 million tons of aluminium extrusion production, the market share is relatively small; Now that China has become a decisive force in the market, and last year produced 17.8 million tons of aluminum and took 40 percent of the total world capacity. In theory, China is a barrier. Albanese wrote in 2007: "aluminum production is energy-intensive, and China is in a disadvantaged place in the electricity supply compared with competitors." What makes the Western manufacturers disturbed is that, despite the price of aluminum has been declining in the past 18 months, but China's aluminum industry hasn’t seen the slightest sign of slowing. The data from the International Aluminium Institute shows that, China's aluminum production in the first eight months of this year increased by 10.2% over the same period last year. While the rest of the world aluminum production fell 2.1%.