Chalco's Pingguo starts production at new alumina plant

HONG KONG, May 29 (Reuters) - Aluminum Corp of China Ltd's (2600.HK) (601600.SS) Pingguo plant in Guangxi started production at a new 440,000-tonne alumina facility on May 28, plant sources said on Thursday.

The plant would kick off another new alumina facility with the same capacity on June 22, boosting designed alumina capacity to 1.78 million tonnes a year, the sources said.

The new capacity would produce about 400,000 tonnes of alumina this year, which would boost output to above 1.3 million tonnes this year from 960,000 tonnes last year, one of the sources said.

Zhang Qing, investor relations manager at Chalco in Beijing, said the group's alumina production would be below 11 million tonnes this year from last year's 10.2 million tonnes, despite the start-up at the Pingguo plant.

Chalco is the world's third-largest producer of alumina, the raw material for aluminium production.

(Reporting by Polly Yam; Editing by Anne Marie Roantree )