Japan's imports of unwrought aluminium and scrap drop in Jan-Sept 2019; semi-finished imports up

Japan, a key producer of aluminium semi-finished products, which procures its aluminium through import and secondary recovery produced 67,000 tonnes of secondary aluminium in the month of September, Japan Aluminium Association data shows.

Japan produced 596,000 tonnes of secondary aluminium in the first nine months of 2019. The production dropped 2.3% from 610,000 tonnes produced in the same period of 2018.

For the whole year 2018, Japan produced 827,000 tonnes of secondary aluminium, which was about three per cent more from 2017. Based on the current rate of production, total secondary or recycled aluminium production in Japan is likely to stand at about 800,000 tonnes in 2019.

The major part of recycled aluminium is produced from domestically procured scraps coming from its growing automotive sector. Japan imported about 54,000 tonnes of aluminium scrap in 2018 and in the first nine months of 2019, the country imported 35,000 tonnes of aluminium scrap. Import dropped about 21.5% from the same period of 2018.

The country imported about 3 million tonnes of unwrought aluminium and semi-finished aluminium in 2018. Data shows a downward trend in import of aluminium and aluminium scrap in 2019. Similar downward trend is observed in production of secondary aluminium. However, imports of rolled aluminium products have registered an increase of 28.4% YoY.