Translated material
RUSAL is growing by 22%
In general, even the few indicators published by RUSAL are impressive: revenue is growing annually by 20-25% per year. Despite the fact that production is not growing too rapidly (by 1-2% per year), the company has ambitious plans: by 2013, through the construction and acquisition of new facilities, RUSAL plans to almost double production, to 5 million tons of aluminum annually.
Even now RUSAL is one of the three world leaders in terms of primary aluminum production. At the end of last year, it produced 2.71 million tons of primary aluminum, while the American Alcoa and Canadian Alcan produced 3.54 million tons and 3.48 million tons, respectively. Norwegian Hydro Aluminum, which is on the list of world aluminum leaders after RUSAL, produced 1.8 million tons of primary aluminum. However, if RUSAL implements its ambitious plans to increase production, it is possible that it will become the world leader in the aluminum market.
At the same time, by producing more technologically advanced high-value products, RUSAL's main competitors are noticeably ahead of the Russian company in terms of revenue. Thus, Alcan’s revenue at the end of last year amounted to $20.329 billion. Alcoa received $26.159 billion from the sale of its products. The Norwegian company received about $13 billion. This is primarily due to the fact that competitors produce products with higher added value. These are mainly alloys for the automotive, aerospace industries and packaging materials. For example, Alcoa accounts for about 10% of its sales from products for the automotive industry, the same amount for the aircraft industry, and 24% from packaging. Only a quarter of the company's revenue comes from selling primary aluminum.
According to RUSAL representative Vera Kurochkina, the company’s main goal in increasing production is to increase the share of alloys. “Our main goal is that in the future, at least 50% of the total production volume will be alloys,” she says. In the meantime, RUSAL's main production and sales volume is primary aluminum. However, the task of transitioning to the production of products with higher added value is already being implemented. At the end of last year, a third of total sales came from alloys, which are 20% or more more expensive than primary aluminum.
Yesterday, the “private investment fund”, which includes RUSAL, the Basic Element company, which manages the assets of Oleg Deripaska, also disclosed the financial indicators of its divisions. As stated in the company's statement, the increase in the transparency of its activities is associated with the introduction of high corporate standards; “Public disclosure of information about companies included in Basel is based on principles agreed upon with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the International Finance Corporation, which act as lenders to projects in which Basel enterprises participate.” True, the information that appears on the Basel website is not consolidated; it is only data on individual companies included in its structure. Many of them (in particular, RUSAL, the GAZ group) regularly publish information about their activities.