At the same time, the giant also managed to ramp up its output of aluminum by 2,1 percent to 1,88 million tonnes (2,06 million tons) in the first six months of 2018.
US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told Reuters in July that Russia's aluminum giant Rusal has provided the Treasury Department with a plan that details how to take the company off the US list of sanctioned entities. Mnuchin told Reuters that the goal is to keep Rusal in business if acceptable solution can be found.
"Today, the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) is issuing Ukraine-/Russia-related General License 13C, which replaces and supersedes General License 13B in its entirety. General License 13C extends the expiration date of the general license to 12:01 a.m. October 23, 2018," the OFAC said.
In early April, the United States imposed new sanctions against Russia, affecting a number of key businessmen and companies controlled by them.
UN Special Rapporteur on the negative impact of the unilateral coercive measures Idriss Jazairy told Sputnik earlier that the sanctions, imposed by Western countries against Russia, hit the EU countries the hardest since they were introduced for political reasons, without conducting necessary studies of their influence on world markets.