CHINA Hongqiao Group, the world’s biggest non-state owned aluminum producer, reported record half-year earnings Friday as surging prices of the metal saw profit almost triple.

Hongqiao said in a filing to the Hong Kong stock exchange its net income for the January-June period was 8.14 billion yuan (US$1.25 billion), up 187.5 percent from a year earlier and the biggest half-yearly profit for the company since it listed in 2011.

Revenues were up 31.4 percent to 52.48 billion yuan as Hongqiao noted Shanghai aluminum prices were around one third higher than in the same period of 2020.

Prices rebounded strongly from the coronavirus outbreak on recovering demand in China last year. Last week, they hit a 13-year high of 20,575 yuan a ton as several Chinese regions impose power consumption restrictions on smelters to reduce carbon emissions, tightening aluminum supply.

Hongqiao, which only reports earnings on a half-yearly basis, said it produced 2.801 million tons of aluminum alloy products in the first six months of this year, up from 2.741 million tons a year earlier.

Its sales of aluminum raw material alumina were up 23.9 percent year on year in financial terms.

Sustained economic growth in China, the world’s top aluminum market, in the second half of 2021 should see aluminum consumption continue to rise in the real estate, automotive and infrastructure sectors, driving prices for the metal higher, Hongqiao said.

(SD-Agencies)