Aluminum Corporation of China Limited was incorporated as a joint stock limited company under PRC laws on September 10, 2001. The Company produces alumina and primary aluminum. The Company's scope of business includes bauxite mining, the production of alumina, primary aluminum and ancillary products, and provision of engineering and construction services. Aluminum Corp.'s production operations are organized and managed according to its two business segments, alumina and primary aluminum. Its alumina segment includes the production and sale of its alumina-related products, namely, alumina and alumina chemical products, including alumina hydrate; alumina based industrial chemical products and gallium. Alumina chemical products are used in the production of chemical, pharmaceutical, ceramic and construction materials. Its important aluminum product is ingots. Other than ingots, the Company also produces a small amount of high value-added and high-margin primary aluminum, such as electrical aluminum and aluminum alloys used for special industrial applications. Alumina is produced from bauxite, an aluminum-bearing ore, by a chemical refining process. The production process generally includes the sintering process, the Bayer process, the hybrid Bayer-sintering process or the ore-dressing Bayer process. Bauxite is the principal raw material for the production of alumina. The Company purchases bauxite from a number of suppliers. It currently has eight open-pit mines. Aluminum Corp. currently jointly operatea 16 bauxite mines. In addition to its own mines and its jointly operated mines, the Company also sources bauxite from other suppliers. The Company sells a portion of the alumina it produces to its own primary aluminum smelters and a majority of its alumina output to external customers. The Company's primary aluminum segment includes the production and sale of primary aluminum-related products, namely, primary aluminum and carbon products. Alumina is converted into primary aluminum through a smelting process using electrolytic reduction. There are two methods commonly used to produce primary aluminum, the 'pre-bake' reduction process and the 'soderberg' reduction process. The Company operates seven primary aluminum production facilities, including Lanzhou Aluminum, located in seven provinces in China. Alumina is the main raw material in the production of primary aluminum. Aluminum Corp. relies on its suppliers for the supply of raw materials including bauxite, coal, heavy oil and alkali. The Company coordinates its major sales and marketing activities at its corporate headquarters. All of its primary aluminum products are sold externally. The Company sells its primary aluminum through two channels: Contract sales and Sales on the Shanghai Futures Exchange. Apart from a small amount of export sales, it sells all of its primary aluminum products to domestic customers. Producers of alumina and primary aluminum are subject to national industrial policies and relevant laws and regulations in areas of environmental protection, import and export, land use, foreign investment regulation and taxation. The Company is also subject to regulations relating to activities such as mining. The Company is principally subject to governmental supervision and regulation by two agencies of the PRC government: the NDRC and the Ministry of Land and Resources. As of December 31, 2005, aluminum corp. owned 408 patents and 28 trademarks. As of 31 Dec 2005, Aluminum Corp. had 68,200 employees.
Fundamental Data Provided by Morningstar, Inc.Copyright © 2006 FactSet Research Systems Inc. All rights reserved.[/size] [size="1"]