SUAL Group, one of the world’s top ten aluminium producers, today announces production results for the year to 31 December 2004 and the fourth quarter (Q4) of 2004. The results show that production continued to grow across all the Group’s operations.

SUAL Group's overall production of bauxite for 2004 amounted to 5.02 million tonnes and increased by 13.4% against the same period of last year. The bauxite output increase was mainly due to the development of the Middle Timan Mine, and was targeted at satisfying of SUAL's growing demand for alumina.

Alumina production in 2004 constituted 2.07 million tonnes, representing a 1.3% increase against the same period of 2003. The production growth was due to the successful realisation of ongoing modernisation and technical development programmes at the Group's operations.

In 2004 SUAL Group's overall production of primary aluminium reached 923.8 thousand tonnes, a 3.8% increase against the same period of 2003. The growth was a result of putting two new pre-baked anode potlines into operation at Ural Aluminium, as well as to implementation of technical development in the potlines at all Group's aluminium businesses.

Silicon output in 2004 constituted 57.7 thousand tonnes, a 13.3% increase against the figures of the same period of last year. The substantial silicon output increase was due to the expansion of silicon supplying to the domestic market.

Due to the effective internal and external marketing policy, strengthening of the management systems and equipment development SUAL Group downstream businesses have significantly increased production. For 2004 Kamensk-Uralsky reported a 22.7% increase of rolled and semi-finished products against the same period of 2003, totalling 82.1 thousand tonnes. Ural Foil improved the output of foil and aluminium strip up to 13.3 thousand tonnes, representing a 24.4% increase against 2003. Demidovsky, for 2004 produced 3.93 thousand tonnes of consumer goods, exceeding the 2003 production by 37.7%.

The overall cable production reached 36.6 thousand tonnes in 2004, showing a 16.7% increase over 2003.

Production Highlights 2004 (The year to 31 December 2004 against the figures of the same period of 2003)

Production Highlights - Fourth Quarter of 2004 and 2003 (Three months, from 1 October to 31 December 2004 and 2003)

Notes to editors:

The SUAL Group is a vertically integrated business and is among the ten largest aluminium producers in the world. SUAL comprises enterprises involved in bauxite mining, alumina refining, production of silicon, aluminium semi — finished and finished aluminium products.

Annually, the operations of the SUAL Group: mine some 5 million tonnes of bauxite, refine more than 2.1 million tonnes of alumina, produce over 920,000 tonnes of primary aluminium, produce more than 60,000 tonnes of silicon and manufacture more than 135,000 tonnes of aluminium products.

Appendix 1

Production by  Unit (2004 / 2003 comparison)