Citi: China's Bauxite Import Dependence Deepens, Guinea's Share Rises to 81%
Nashnova编辑部
Citi data show Guinea supplied 81% of China's bauxite imports in the first seven months of 2026, up from 69% just two years earlier; China's aluminium supply chain now rests heavily on a single African nation.
How fast is Guinea's share climbing?
Guinea's share of Chinese bauxite imports: 69% in FY2024 → 74% in FY2025 → 81% in Jan–Jul 2026 — double-digit gains three years running.
Annualised, Guinea shipped roughly 194 million tonnes to China in the first seven months — already exceeding the ~180 million tonnes of bauxite needed to feed China's entire 45-million-tonne aluminium capacity.
This means → one country alone can, in theory, supply all the ore China's smelters need.
Why is import dependence approaching 100%?
Citi notes that since 2020, China's bauxite import growth has outpaced aluminium production growth.
By FY2025, China's theoretical dependence on imported bauxite had reached nearly 100% — domestic mines can no longer close the gap.
In plain terms = virtually every tonne of ore that goes into a Chinese smelter now comes from overseas, and more than four-fifths of that comes from one country.
Who is actually mining Guinea's bauxite?
The export surge is driven by the SMG/WAP project led by China Hongqiao (中国宏桥). Launched in 2015, it had built over ~50 million tonnes of annual export capacity by 2018.
Most output belongs to Chinese aluminium companies that own mines in Guinea — a classic upstream-integration play by China's smelters.
This means → Chinese firms mine the ore abroad and ship it home, cutting their need to buy on the open market and squeezing the tradeable bauxite pool available to third parties.
Why can't bauxite prices rise?
Citi argues that smelters' self-supply through integration has compressed demand for tradeable bauxite.
The result: bauxite prices sit at a structurally lower level — not a cyclical dip, but a long-term floor set by the supply-demand architecture.
Put simply = the buyers became mine owners; fewer bidders show up on the open market, so prices stay flat.
A 13× surge in a decade — how long can this road run?
Guinea's bauxite exports to China rose from 11 million tonnes in 2016 to 150 million tonnes in 2025 — more than 13× in a decade.
Guinea holds nearly one-quarter of the world's proven bauxite reserves (USGS data), yet years of political instability kept it a mere "occasional" supplier before Chinese mining firms moved in and reshaped the landscape.
This reflects a core variable for China's aluminium supply chain: whether Guinea's concentration can hold and its political risk can stay manageable.
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