Rusal has resumed negotiations with all customers after the sanctions against the company were lifted in January 2019, the situation with the supply of products is expected to straighten out by the end of the year, Oleg Mukhamedshin, Director of Strategy, Business Development and Financial Markets at Rusal, said in an interview with TASS on the sidelines of the SPIEF-2019.

"Now there is no uncertainty (with shipment of products - TASS.) All our customers have contacted us, negotiations have been resumed," he said.

"I think that the situation will straighten out by the end of the year, and in terms of sales portfolio, it will be clear next year what customers we have back and how our production facilities are loaded, first of all for in terms of value-added products," Mukhamedshin explained.

In April, Rusal's General Director, Yevgeny Nikitin, told TASS that the company had restored aluminum supplies to the U.S. and Europe at a pre-sanction level, but the volume of shipments for alloys was still recovering. The company did not consider significant changes in the sales geography, he said.

Rusal is the largest aluminum producer outside of China and the only primary aluminum producer in Russia. In 2018, the company produced 3.753 mln tonnes of aluminum, which is up 1.3% year-on-year. At the same time, the company's sales decreased by 7.2%, to 3.671 mln tonnes.

In April 2018, Rusal came under the US sanctions, which implied that the company’s assets in the United States were frozen and US citizens were not allowed to do any business with the company.

For Rusal, which exports more than 80% of its products, these sanctions meant almost complete suspension of activities. In late January 2019, the United States lifted the sanctions from the company.