China's Aluminium Producer Chalco Returns to Profit in Jan-Sept

China's state-owned Aluminum Corporation of China Ltd (Chalco) swung back to profitability in the first nine months, buoyed by higher metal prices and continued cost-cutting efforts, the company said last Thursday.

Chalco posted a net profit of 107.9 million yuan ($16.02 million) in the January-September period, compared with a net loss of 974.6 million yuan a year earlier, it said in a filing to the Hong Kong stock exchange.

The gains came as the company, one of the world's top producers, benefited from the continued rise in aluminium prices.

Prices rose 1.5 percent for their third straight quarterly rise, hitting one-year highs of $1,710 a tonne in August, as global capacity cuts helped erode excess output.

The improvement was also partly attributable to the recent sale of some assets.

The second-largest aluminium producer in China, Chalco accounts for just under a quarter of the country's alumina output and over 10 percent of its aluminium output.

The global market has been plagued by oversupply for the past five years, depressing prices and hurting producers' profits.

Aluminium smelters in China, the world's top producer and consumer of the metal, cut output late last year, reducing supply in the hope of supporting prices. ($1 = 6.7360 Chinese yuan renminbi) (Reporting by Twinnie Siu in Hong Kong and Josephine Mason in Beijing. Editing by David Evans)