Rusal, the leading aluminium producer outside China, witnessed a significant 90% decrease in its adjusted profit for 2023, dropping to $73 million (USD) from the previous year’s earnings. Despite a 6.6% increase in sales, reaching 4.153 million tonnes of aluminium and alloys, the company faced several market and geopolitical challenges that impacted its financial performance.
The company reported a modest 0.3% rise in aluminium production to 3.85 million tonnes. However, alumina production saw a 13.8% decrease, settling at 5.13 million tonnes. In contrast, bauxite production experienced an 8.6% year-on-year increase to 13.38 million tonnes.
Rusal’s revenue also fell by 12.6% to $12.21 billion (USD), with its adjusted EBITDA plunging 61.2% to $786 million (USD). The adjusted EBITDA margin decreased significantly to 6.4% in 2023 from 14.5% a year earlier. This financial strain was further compounded by the need to navigate through increased geopolitical tensions and volatility in commodity markets since February 2022.
The company also mentioned the challenges it faced due to geopolitical tensions, including being squeezed out of premium markets and the loss of its raw material base. Despite these difficulties, Rusal has been actively seeking solutions to logistical issues and has even paid windfall tax ahead of schedule, amounting to $39 million (USD).
Rusal’s strategic response to the changing market dynamics included a significant increase in sales to China, which grew more than 2.5 times in 2023. As a result, Asia’s share in Rusal’s sales structure increased from almost 27% in 2022 to 38.4% in 2023, with the domestic market, including CIS countries, also seeing a rise to 31.9%.
The company’s investment programme remained above $1 billion (USD), focusing on environmental modernisation of key plants and development of new technologies and alloys. This is part of Rusal’s broader effort to navigate through a challenging year for the global aluminium industry, marked by falling exchange prices and supply chain disruptions. 
