Global Trade
June 16, 2025
Why China's aluminum capex stays so low
Written by Greg Wittbecker
We recently took note of the Tianshan Aluminum brownfield expansion in Xinjiang, China. Tianshan is a huge primary smelter built in 2010 as part of Beijing’s plan to boost economic growth in this autonomous region of far western China.
Tianshan has announced a 200,000 metric ton per year (mt/y) “creep” project that will take them to 1.4 million mt/y. The capital cost will be 2.23 billion renminbi (RMB), or about USD $311.1 million. That translates to a capital cost of about $1,556/mt. By Chinese standards, that’s on the high end, but it’s still well below the best examples outside China, which have come in between $3,500 and $4,000/mt of installed capacity.
