Chalco (HKG: 2600) Critical Minerals Exposure

Aluminum Corporation of China, better known as Chalco, is the listed arm of the state-owned Chinalco group and one of the largest aluminum producers in the world. Headquartered in Beijing, it mines bauxite, refines alumina and smelts primary metal across several Chinese provinces, with further bauxite supply from Guinea. Its alumina refineries also make it one of the main sources of gallium, a by-product on which much of the world relies on China.

Chalco is linked to two critical minerals. Aluminum is its main product, made from bauxite through alumina refining and smelting, and it supplies a large share of China's primary metal. Gallium is the by-product: it occurs in tiny amounts in bauxite and is recovered during alumina refining, which is why China, with its vast alumina industry, dominates world gallium supply. Gallium is essential for semiconductors, LEDs and defence electronics, and China's export controls on it have made producers such as Chalco closely watched.

Chalco's alumina refineries and smelters are spread across Shanxi, Henan, Shandong, Guangxi, Guizhou and Yunnan, among other provinces, with its smelting increasingly moving to regions with hydropower. It also mines bauxite in China and at Boffa in Guinea, which supplies its refineries by sea.