A reminder to our valued subscribers that from today we’ve shifted the publication date and time of the Bauxite Index Weekly Update to Wednesdays, with bauxite price data published at 5.00pm Australian Eastern Standard Time. Moving to Wednesday gives our team more opportunity to engage with the market earlier in the week and to verify the data we have collected over the previous seven days.

In addition to the changed publication day and time, we’ve also taken the opportunity to make some improvements to our Value-in-Use (ViU) calculation methodology and freight algorithms.

We’ve made these changes because we have detected changes to the processing parameters operated by Chinese domestic refineries processing imported bauxites, as they learn more about how their processes behave when treating different bauxites, and as they seek to optimise their processes accordingly.

In our quest to constantly improve the quality of our product to accurately reflect the current market, CM has improved the methodology and modelling algorithms that underly the CBIX ViU price calculations. The most significant is in the processing of imported High Temperature (HT) boehmitic bauxites, which has been switched from a generic Chinese-style, diasporic processing regime (high caustic, high temperatures, high lime additions, long digestion retention times), to a ROW-style boehmitic processing regime (lower caustic, high temperature, low lime addition, shorter digestion retention times). This also results in reduction in energy use for processing imported boehmitic HT bauxites, bringing them closer to that of Low Temperature (LT) imported gibbsitic bauxites.

Additionally, CM has revised its digestion algorithms and altered its penalties system to account for organics in each bauxite. Penalties for organics load of imported bauxites are included as additional ‘washing losses’ of caustic soda (NaOH) per tonne of alumina produced, rather than as a specified US$/t alumina penalty (see CBIX specifications). Testing of the new modelling approach and algorithms, which have been ongoing for many months,  have shown that estimated processing consumptions and ViU pricing is now more reflective of the market in China today.

If you have any questions or comments about the change, please feel free to send them to us and we’ll be only too happy to respond.

CBIX SPECS 2022

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China’s Aluminium Value Chain Quarterly Update is an independent and detailed assessment of the key metrics of China’s bauxite, alumina and primary aluminium industries, as we see them, presented in the form of an easily digestible set of charts and tables, together with relevant commentary on significant events, emerging trends and other key themes arising from our analysis.

For over a decade, we have been continually conducting in-depth studies of these industries in China, among which field studies are a cornerstone of our work. Over that time, we have drawn on, and continue to draw on, a diverse range of sources to gather primary data, on which our analyses and forecasts are based.

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