The world`s leading aluminium producer, Russia`s United Company RUSAL, said on Monday that it had halted work at one of its mining operations due to a strike, but said that there were sufficient raw material stockpiled to maintain metal output.

"The work at the whole of SUBR has been halted -- 96 workers remain underground," a UC RUSAL spokeswoman said. "But we have sufficient stocks of bauxite for the work of other (RUSAL`s) units to proceed without interruption," she said, without giving more details.

On Thursday, workers at a mine named Krasnaya Shapochka (Little Red Hiding Hood), part of the SUBR mining complex in the Ural mountains, refused to surface after their shift and demanded a pay rise. At the time, RUSAL said the incident did not affect output of bauxite at the complex. SUBR`s recent output volumes are not available.

The complex produced 3.38Mt of bauxite in 2005, down 3.7% in 2004. In 2006, SUAL, which then owned the complex, said it aimed to increase production to 3.8Mt of bauxite by 2010. UC RUSAL produced 17.35Mt of the raw material in 2007 (roughly four tonnes of bauxite are needed to produce one tonne of aluminium).

UC RUSAL was formed last year through a merger of Russian companies RUSAL and SUAL, with some assets from commodities trader Glencore. The group produced 4.2Mt of aluminium last year.