(May 26): China’s aluminium industry is preparing for significant disruption to its raw materials supplies after Guinea, the world’s biggest bauxite producer, said it’s finalising plans to limit exports of the ore.
The West African nation will set out steps to control bauxite exports in June, Mines and Geology Minister Bouna Sylla said in an interview with Bloomberg News. Guinea’s shipments — which surged by more than a quarter in 2025 to 183 million tonnes — have played a pivotal role for China’s aluminium sector in feeding its refineries and keeping costs low.
The minister said the rapid growth of bauxite exports has triggered a slump in global prices that the government wants to address. “Supply mustn’t exceed demand,” Sylla said. “We want to regulate the quantity to raise prices back to reasonable levels.”
The plan adds to a wave of interventions by commodity-rich nations aimed at influencing prices and encouraging investment in domestic processing. The Democratic Republic of Congo and Zimbabwe restricted exports of cobalt and lithium, respectively, which are mainly shipped to China. Indonesia is ramping up years of resource nationalism with sweeping plans for a state agency to oversee its exports.
Most of Guinea’s bauxite is shipped to China, where it’s first refined into alumina and then used in the Asian nation’s battalion of aluminium smelters. Last year, around three quarters of China’s 201 million tonnes of bauxite imports came from the country, and monthly volumes from Guinea reached a record above 18 million tonnes in March.
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Alumina on China’s Shanghai Futures Exchange surged by as much as 4.3% after Guinea’s plan to raise it to 2,865 yuan a tonne, swinging from a loss to a gain for this year. Traders in China said they were waiting for details of the measures, amid speculation that Guinea’s government could impose a cap of 150 million tonnes of bauxite annually.
“That would turn a surplus market into a significantly tight market, greatly boosting bauxite prices,” said Peng Dinggui, an analyst with Zhongtai Futures Co. “That’s going to accelerate the exit of Chinese alumina capacity.”
Price slump
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Bauxite delivered to China dropped to a four-year low below US$60 a tonne earlier this year, down from a record US$120 in January 2025, according to data from Asian Metal Inc. Mining investors “have an interest in seeing prices rise", Sylla added.
Guinea is pushing miners to build refineries capable of producing alumina, with three facilities already at the planning stage or under construction to add to the country’s single existing plant.
China’s State Power Investment Corp, Aluminum Corp of China Ltd and a consortium headed by Singapore-registered Winning International Group are developing those refineries, which will process some of the bauxite produced at their operations in the country.
The government wants a total of five new refineries, with the combined capacity to produce 7.2 million tonnes of alumina annually, according to Sylla. That volume would still only absorb less than 15% of the bauxite mined in Guinea last year.
Sylla said Guinea also intends to seek investors for an aluminium smelter. “For us, the transition from alumina to aluminium is inevitable,” he said.
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