Global aluminium production flatlined in the first quarter of this year, according to the International Aluminium Institute (IAI).

A couple of long-running outages together with curtailments in Europe caused production outside China to dip 1.4% to 6.37 million tonnes in the first three months of 2019.

Chinese production, a complex moving picture of price-induced curtailments, pollution controls and capacity swaps, edged 1.6% higher to 8.93 million tonnes.

The net result was that global production rose by a marginal 0.3% year-on-year as China remained the world's dominant player with a 57% share of world production.