Asian Metal visits Rio Tinto, Oldendorff and South32

On December 11, 2017, Mr. Friday Gao, Senior Analyst of Asian Metal visited Rio Tinto, Oldendorff and South32 in Singapore.

In the morning, Mr. Gao firstly visited Oldendoff and met with Mr. Jeff Jiang, Senior Metal Analyst of the company. They talked about the global bauxite market and Chinese demand. According to Mr. Jeff, Oldendorff, who has a 100-year history, focuses on ships chartering and cargo shipping business of iron ore, coal and bauxite, etc. In terms of bauxite, they handle with around 7 million tonnes per year globally.

Mr. Gao introduced the 9th World Aluminum Raw Summit to be held by Asian Metal in Jinan, Shandong of China, on May 17-18, 2018.

After the meeting, Mr. Gao visited Rio Tinto and had a meeting with Mr. Zhou Sheng, General Manager of China Sales and Ms. Maggie Meng, Principal Analyst of the Group.

Mr. Zhou is very optimistic about the Chinese demand for imported bauxite. Rio Tinto's bauxite project named Amrun in Queensland of Australia is scheduled to come on stream in 2019, which will contribute around 10 million tonnes of bauxite per year.

According to China Customs, from January to October, China imported around 20.6 million tonnes of bauxite from Australia in total.

Mr. Gao analyzed Chinese bauxite & alumina markets and introduced the 9th World Aluminum Raw Summit to be held by Asian Metal in Jinan, Shandong of China, on May 17-18, 2018.

In the afternoon, Mr. Gao visited South32 and had a pleasant meeting with Mr. Dennis De Sepibus, Commodity Manager, Ms. Wanny Wan, Marketing Manager and Ms. Shirley Yeo, Analyst. Mr. Gao introduced Chinese demand for imported bauxite and the alumina market, as well as the 9th World Aluminum Raw Summit to be held by Asian Metal in Jinan, Shandong of China, on May 17-18, 2018.

According to Mr. Dennis, South32 is a major alumina and primary aluminum producer. In Australia, they have an alumina refinery, which is running fully at the annual capacity of 4.6 million tonnes. They need to consume around 2.5 million tonnes by themselves per year.