Gongyi City, Henan Province, has taken day-time blackout measures for aluminum processing plants

Reuters Hong Kong, January 15 - Industry sources said on Friday that Gongyi City, Henan Province, China, has taken measures to cut the output of the latter's aluminum processing plant during the day, resulting in a halving of production.

The reduction in production resulted in a reduction in the consumption of primary aluminum in the Gongyi aluminum processing plant, and Henan's primary aluminum stocks were affected by this increase.

Gong Yi’s sales manager told Reuters, “Our factory can only start work from 10 p.m. to 8 p.m. the next morning.” The power plant did not say when it will resume the electricity supply during the day, but said it would not In this month.

He also said that the purchase of spot aluminum in processing plants this week has been reduced, because of the reduction in consumption, and the smelter sales will also be substantially reduced.

An executive from a large aluminum smelter in Henan Province stated that after reducing production, the aluminum inventory at the Gongyi processing plant will reach a record high.

According to industry sources, Gongyi City can process approximately 100,000 tons of semi-finished aluminum materials each month, including aluminum plates, aluminum strips, aluminum foils, etc., and consumes about 1 million tons of primary aluminum each year.

Last week, the State Grid Corporation of China stated that central and southwestern regions such as Henan Province faced a tight supply of electricity, electricity demand jumped due to the cold weather in January, and there was a shortage of electric coal.

The above sales manager stated that the local government is trying hard to maintain the power supply to the Gongyi aluminum processing plant because of the high cost of production interruption and restart.

A source at Zhongfu Industry in Gongyi City said that the shortage of electricity has forced a subsidiary of the company to postpone the start of a smelting facility with a capacity of 130,000 tons/year. After the equipment is put into production, Zhongfu Industry's aluminum smelting capacity will reach 850,000 tons/year.

Before that, the local aluminum smelter in Henan Province had received notification from the power plant, which said that it may face power supply disruption because of coal shortages affecting power generation. Henan's aluminum production accounted for one-fifth of China's aluminum supply.