In April, the price of calcined bauxite at Yangquan held steady, although the high-grade stuff was still quite expensive. However, most producers say that demand is starting to pick up a bit and production rates are slowly creeping up.

However, despite all this, the supply of high-grade bauxite is still struggling to keep up with demand. In addition, the high cost of natural gas and a shortage of coke oven gas make it difficult for the region to compete on raw materials.

Now, with falling profits in the steel industry putting pressure on refractory prices and strong cost support keeping prices up, there’s a lot of pressure on the price of calcined bauxite to go up or down in the short term. But it’s looking like the price of calcined bauxite will remain stable for a while.