In recent years, Chinese aluminum production capacity has transferred rapidly to the western region, especially to Xinjiang that has a large concentration of new production capacity. In the first seven months of this year, Xinjiang primary aluminum output was 2.275 million tons, an increase of 89.5%. Compare that with Henan province, the traditional home of aluminium production in China, where output was 1.978 million tons, an increase of 2.9%.

Xinjiang province is now the largest producer of aluminium production, relegating Henan to second place. This is the first time this change of position has occurred in the past 10 years.

Currently, the largest production areas are Xinjiang, Henan, Qinghai, Inner Mongolia, Gansu, Shandong, Ningxia, Yunnan, Shanxi and Shaanxi. The total output for these regions reached 11.7 million tons, accounting for 86 percent of China’s production.

According to sources at the Xinjiang Nonferrous Metals Industry Association, primary aluminum production capacity is expected to reach 6.0 million tons in Xinjiang by the end of 2014.

By the end of twelfth “Five-Year Plan”, Xinjiang will build 6.5 million tons of aluminium production capacity, plus semis processing capacity of 1.2 million tons. The formation of coal, electric power and metallurgy will become one industry chain, creating a value exceeding one hundred billion Yuan.

Xinjiang is set to become the new centre for aluminium in China, and by 2017 will be the largest production centre for aluminium in the world.

Meanwhile, Henan will continue to decline. Its electricity costs are more than 1,000 Yuan per ton higher than that of the western region. It will therefore be under great pressure to engage in industry transformation and upgrading, energy conservation and an Industry-wide turnaround.