Over the past three quarters, Hydro has continually increased prices for unpainted aluminum engineering general engineering products. After each price increase, however, the metal costs continued to rise. In addition, metal premiums increased when metal stocks were scarce and financing costs for metal purchases increased.

For this reason, for deliveries in July 2010 there will be a further increase in prices for uncoated aluminum rolled products from the General Engineering division, for which no agreement has yet been reached, by EUR 75 per tonne

In the interest of greater price transparency, Hydro will offer all customers a changed price combination from the third quarter of 2010. If in the past the fluctuating metal premium was always included in the rework price, it can in future be calculated together with the aluminum listing on the London Metal Exchange (LME) as a flowing formula price.

The production capacities for magnesium-containing alloys for the second quarter have already been sold out for a few weeks. Hydro's current delivery time for pure aluminum in alloy 1050 is June 2010.

In our rolling mills, the same weekly capacity for short-term standard business is planned as in the third quarter. However, as in previous years, the plants in the Norwegian plants will be idle during the three-week summer vacation.