Morning Bites

⚡️Europe has lost 50% of its aluminium smelting capacity within the past year due to the energy crisis, Bloomberg reports. This might account for ~6% of global primary supply. Speira GmbH is one of the recent energy crisis victims. The firm is considering cutting production at its aluminium smelter in Germany by 80kt/a (1% of EU output). As we wrote before, output cuts are also spread across some plants in China and the US. Over the last year, the total lost capacity might have reached ~8% of global supply, which might be positive for aluminium prices

📉Chile’s Codelco has lowered its 2022 copper production guidance 7% to 1.49-1.51mnt. According to the firm, the decrease was caused by lower grades and recovery rates at some mines. Given that the reduction accounts for 2% of Chile’s mine copper production (or 0.5% of global), this might be a slightly positive factor for copper prices. However, we keep a negative outlook on copper demand due to the global economic slowdown

#aluminium #copper