Japanese major general trading house, Sumitomo Corporation forecasted world primary aluminium demand would increase by 5.5% to 45.681 million tonnes in 2012 compared with the level in the previous year while world supply would increase by 3.8% to 46.622 million tonnes. The oversupply would narrow to 941,000 tonnes in 2012 from 1.61 million tonnes in 2011.
World demand growth would slow down to 5.5% in 2012 compared with 6.7% in the previous year mainly due to economic deterioration along European financial crisis. Meanwhile, the economic trend is expected to improve in the second half of 2012. World aluminium supply would not significantly increase when major smelters are moving to output reduction. Sumitomo Corp. pointed out major smelters have accelerated output reductions since 2009 because of production cost upsurge.