OREANDA-NEWS. December 2, 2011. UC RUSAL (SEHK: 486, Euronext: RUSAL/RUAL, MICEX: RUALR, RTS: RUALR), the world’s largest aluminium producer, is pleased to announce that rolling billets produced at RUSAL’s smelters have been successfully qualified by Novelis company, the world’s largest producer of aluminium rolled products. RUSAL is also working on qualification of its products by BMW and Volkswagen.

The 5754 and 5182 alloys qualified by Novelis are used in car body production. The trial consignment of the billets was produced at the Bratsk aluminium smelter. Irkutsk and Sayanogorsk aluminium smelters are now having their cast wheel alloys going through the qualification process. The trial consignment of AlSi7MgSr cast alloy was successfully processed at the Volkswagen plant. Now the German automotive producer has ordered another 175-tonne consignment for the second stage of qualification. Two other alloys, AlSi11MgSr for Volkswagen and AlSiCu for BMW, are also going through the qualification process.

‘The tightening EU energy efficiency and environmental requirements will lead to the increase of aluminium usage in automotive industry. The usage of aluminium enables to lower the weight of a car, decreasing the fuel consumption and CO2 emissions. In 2012 RUSAL plans to supply about 40% of all alloys produced by Aluminium Division West (about 500,000 tonnes) to European markets,’ said UC RUSAL's Director for Aluminium Division West Vladimir Polin.

European countries account for more than 15% of global aluminium consumption with the automotive industry being responsible for the major part of this consumption. On average, the EU transport contains 8.6% of aluminium, the highest rate globally.