China's top aluminium producer Chalco posts $671 million loss in H1

HONG KONG Aug 28 (Reuters) - Aluminum Corp of China Ltd (Chalco) on Thursday posted a first-half net loss of 4.12 billion yuan ($670.76 million) as overcapacity continued to hurt producers and domestic demand growth slowed.

The result compared with a net loss of 623.8 million yuan in the six months through June 2013.

The company, China's top aluminium producer, sells its product mainly in the domestic market. It adjusted production in the first half due to weak market conditions, it said in a filing to the Shanghai exchange.

The company produced 6 million tonnes of metallurgical grade of alumina in the first half, down 1.5 percent year-on-year, while its production of chemical grades of alumina reached 910,000 tonnes, up 19.7 percent on year. Alumina is used to produce aluminium.

Its production of primary aluminium stood at 1.63 million tonnes in the first six months of 2014, down 19.7 percent from a year ago.

The most active aluminium futures contract in Shanghai lost more than 4 percent in the first half, although the price has improved since then. The price has risen 12 percent from a record low hit in March 2014.

Smelters in China, the world's top aluminium producer, closed about 2 million tonnes of high-cost capacity in the first half of 2014, likely to shrink a surplus in the country this year.

Chalco's peers include China Hongqiao Group, the country's second-biggest aluminium producer. China Hongqiao expects domestic aluminium prices to rise in the second half from the first half after the firm reported a net profit of approximately 2.04 billion yuan for the first half.

Another of Chalco's peers, Russian aluminium giant United Company Rusal Plc, returned to profit for the June quarter, the first time in five, supported by steady prices in the international market.

Benchmark aluminium prices on the London Metal Exchange have surged about 25 percent from a four-and-a-half year low hit in February 2014 as investors bet that capacity cuts by global producers and strong demand would push the market into deficit after years of overproduction.

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