AN international consortium has begun producing aluminium at its new Mozal foundry in Mozambique, six months earlier than scheduled, the British mining group Billiton announced on Monday. Billiton’s partners at Mozal are the Mozambican government, the Industrial Development Cooperation of South Africa and the Japanese group Mitsubishi, the compnay said in a statement. The foundry is expected to reach its full capacity of 250000 tons per annum in the first quarter of 2001. Production began on Sunday, 25 months after the start of the project and six months ahead of schedule. Billiton expects production costs to be lower than the $1,3-billion dollars budgetted.