Russia might ship 2 mln tonnes of aluminum to U.S., proposes considering joint energy-metallurgical megaproject in Siberia - Putin

MOSCOW. Feb 25 (Interfax) - Russia could regain its status as a major supplier of aluminum to the United States market, thus providing a stabilizing effect on the prices, and the two countries could consider a joint energy and metallurgical megaproject in Siberia, Russian President Vladimir Putin said.

Asked to comment on the new U.S. administration's trade and tariff policy in an interview with journalist Pavel Zarubin, Putin said that imports accounted for some 40% of the U.S. aluminum consumption, while Russia accounted for some 15% of aluminum imports into the American market in 2017. Currently, Canada has become the principal aluminum exporter to the U.S.

"If a decision is made to open the American market to our producers, we could sell around 2 million tonnes [of aluminum] on the American market. This wouldn't considerably affect the pricing, but in my view, it would still have some restraining effect on price stabilization," Putin said.

"Apart from that, I think what is most important is that we could think of working together with American companies in this area. For instance, there were plans back in the Soviet era to build a new hydropower plant and new aluminum production facilities in the Krasnoyarsk Territory. After all, energy is of critical importance when it comes to aluminum, and this energy should preferably be cheap. Hydropower is cheap and on top of that it is also environment-friendly. Therefore, again, there've been such plans there since Soviet times. True, it's quite a capital-intensive, an investment-intensive project. By rough estimates, it cost or would cost some $15 billion in current prices. We could think about that," Putin said.

U.S. President Donald Trump's policy is to locate manufacturing facilities within the U.S.; however, "if American companies work in our country, this would also be quite beneficial, because companies would make fairly good money, and the required volumes of aluminum would go to the domestic market at very affordable market prices," Putin said.

"There's something to think about here, as well as about working together on rare earth metals and in other areas, including energy, for example," Putin said.