SHANGHAI, April 30 (Xinhua) -- Aluminum Corp of China, the world's second biggest producer of alumina that is also known as Chalco, made a spectacular debut on the Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSE) on Monday.

The company's A shares -- shares reserved for domestic investors -- issued at a price of 6.6 yuan per share, rocketed by 180 percent on the first day of trading.

Chalco shares zoomed to 20.07 yuan in the morning and closed at18.51 yuan in the afternoon, said SSE sources.

Chalco, which is also listed on the Hong Kong and New York stock exchanges, issued 1.24 billion shares at 6.60 yuan on the SSE.

Part of the operation involved swapping Chalco shares for the shares of two other companies -- Shangdong Aluminium Industry and Lanzhou Aluminium -- which were then delisted.

"Given the contributions from Shangdong Aluminum and Lanzhou Aluminum, there will be no dilution of earnings per share," said Xiao Yaqing, Chalco chairman and CEO.

Chalco aims to increase its annual capacity for alumina to 13 million to 14 million tons by 2010 from 8.3 million tons in 2005, and more than triple its annual aluminum smelting capacity to five million tons from 1.5 million tons in 2005.

It produced about 32 per cent more alumina at 9.5 million tons last year, while aluminum volume almost doubled to two million tons.

The company raised five billion yuan in February by selling long-term corporate bonds to fund its alumina refining and smelting capacity expansion.

It also plans to spend 3 billion Australian dollars to build analumina plant in Queensland, Australia with annual production capacity of 2.1 million tons. It also intends to buy a bauxite mine in Australia.

Chalco, founded in September 2001 and listed on the Hong Kong and New York bourses the same year, has seen its market capitalization gallop to 110 billion Hong Kong dollars.

Alumina is a semi-finished material refined from bauxite ore and processed to make aluminum. It is used in the manufacture of aluminum metal, zeolites and ceramics. It can also be used as a fire retardant and smoke suppressant.