China’s November aluminum output falls to lowest since 2015 on winter cuts

China’s primary aluminum production fell for a fifth consecutive month in November, official data showed on Thursday, as the country’s winter restrictions on smelters pushed output to its lowest since February 2015.

The world’s top aluminum producer churned out 2.35 million tons of the metal last month, down 7.8 percent from 2.55 million tons in October and down 16.8 percent from a year ago, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

In a first for China’s aluminum industry, smelters in 28 cities in northern China were told to cut output by at least 30 percent during this year’s peak winter heating season – which kicked off in mid-November – to combat air pollution.

Analysts, however, have noted that China Hongqiao Group, the world’s biggest aluminum smelter, managed to avoid steep output cuts despite being based in Binzhou, East China’s Shandong Province, one of the 28 cities, after closing 2.68 million tons of illegal capacity earlier this year.

That could help explain the relatively shallow month-on-month drop in China’s overall output.

“The winter cut’s impact is limited, especially the implementation in Shandong, which doesn’t meet people’s previous expectations,” said Jackie Wang, an aluminum analyst at consultancy CRU in Beijing. She projected that December output would be “probably flat” to the November figure.

January-November aluminum production came in at 29.54 million tons, according to NBS, up 1.7 percent yearon-year and within striking distance of an annual record high in 2017. China produced 31.87 million tons of aluminum in 2016.