TAIYUAN, China, Oct 14 (Reuters) - Aluminium processors in China face slimmer profits this year due to surging metal prices, Shandong Nanshan Aluminium Co Ltd's chairman said on Thursday.

Prices of aluminium, used in products from food cans to aeroplanes, have jumped over 50% so far this year on strong demand and output cuts due to an energy crisis and flooding in China, the world's top maker of the metal.

"Aluminium prices have jumped significantly ... (and) increasing freight charges, price spreads and exchange rates are all having a big impact on processors," Lu Zhengfeng, chairman of the Shandong-based firm told a conference at Antaike's China International Aluminium Week.

The most-traded November aluminium contract on the Shanghai Futures Exchange leaped on Wednesday to its highest since May 2006 at 24,165 yuan ($3,752.80) a tonne.

Three-month aluminium on the London Metal Exchange surged to $3,118.50 a tonne on Wednesday, a level not seen since July 2008.

Lu expects revenues at fabricators this year to be weaker than in 2020 and for them to face an even harder time after October.

"The upstream high aluminium prices have already transmitted to fabricators, and fabricators have to transfer the costs to the downstream sector," he said, adding it was uncertain whether aluminium end-users would accept that.

Electricity prices have reached record highs in recent weeks, driven by power shortages across Asia and Europe, with China's crisis expected to last through to the end of the year and crimp growth in the world's second-largest economy.

Power-intensive aluminium smelting is expected to be one of the worst hit metal sectors alongside steel.

"Aluminium smelting is seven times more power intensive than copper smelting, so aluminium is really the sector that gets hit pretty hard," said Eoin Dinsmore, CRU's head of primary aluminium and products at a webinar on Tuesday.

China's state reserve bureau has sold 280,000 tonnes of aluminium so far this year in an effort to ease prices, but Lu said the sales volume was "too small" and would not have a big impact.

State-backed research house Antaike forecast the Chinese aluminium market to switch to a deficit of 200,000 tonnes in 2022 from a surplus of 180,000 tonnes this year, and projected Chinese state reserve sales of 300,000 tonnes next year. ($1 = 6.4392 yuan) (Reporting by Min Zhang in Taiyuan and Mai Nguyen in Hanoi Editing by Mark Potter)