This Morning in Metals: Industrial production rises in July

This morning in metals news: U.S. industrial production picked up in July; the Energy Information Administration revised downward its OPEC petroleum production forecast; and, lastly, Russia’s Rusal recently announced its half-year results.
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Industrial production increases in July

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U.S. industrial production jumped by 0.9% in July, the Federal Reserve reported this week.
Industrial production rose by 0.2% in June.
Manufacturing output in July rose by 1.4%.
“About half of the gain in factory output is attributable to a jump of 11.2 percent for motor vehicles and parts, as a number of vehicle manufacturers trimmed or canceled their typical July shutdowns,” the Fed reported. “Despite the large increase last month, vehicle assemblies continued to be constrained by a persistent shortage of semiconductors; the production of motor vehicles and parts in July was about 3-1/2 percent below its recent peak in January 2021.”

EIA revises OPEC petroleum forecast

The Energy Information Administration revised its global petroleum production forecast for the second half of 2021 down to 98.9 million barrels per day. That marked a drop from the previous forecast of 99.4 million barrels per day.
“We decreased our forecast for world petroleum production in 2021 because of lower forecast production from OPEC, which is only slightly offset by increased forecast production from Russia,” the EIA reported. “We forecast that global petroleum production in 2022 will average 101.8 million b/d—20,000 b/d less than we forecast in the July STEO.”

Rusal reports half-year results

Russian aluminum giant Rusal reported adjusted EBITDA of U.S. $1.3 billion for the six-month period ending June 30, 2021. That marked a 500% jump from $219 million during the first half of 2020.
In terms of production, levels did not change much from 2020. Rusal’s primary aluminum production totaled 1,868,000 metric tons in the first half of 2021, up from 1,867,000 metric tons in 2020.
Alumina production rose from 4.0 million metric tons to 4.1 million metric tons.
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