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Shanghai frenzy fuels alumina's record-breaking rally: Andy Home

Alumina costs have actually skyrocketed to record highs this week, compressing margins at the world's. aluminium smelters which transform the intermediate product into. metal.

The London Metal Exchange (LME) cash rate, indexed. to Platts benchmark Australian alumina assessment, closed. Wednesday at $633.35 per metric heap, lifting the ratio to the. aluminium cost to almost 25%.

The alumina-aluminium ratio was just 15% at the start of. 2024, when alumina was priced at $350 per heap.

A series of supply interruptions have driven the alumina price. higher this year. The trigger for the current cost jump was news. of export problems in Guinea, the major import source of bauxite. for China's alumina refineries.

The physical alumina market is undoubtedly tight however the. explosive nature of the price action also indicates a speculative. craze on the Shanghai Futures Exchange (ShFE).

SHANGHAI BOOM

Nearly 25 million heaps were negotiated on the ShFE alumina. agreement on Wednesday, a record daily high and comparable to. nearly a fifth of worldwide annual production.

Open interest has likewise skyrocketed to life-of-contract highs as. financiers have actually purchased into a gradually increasing market.

The exchange changed both trading limitations and margins on. Thursday, imposing a percentage point premium on speculative. positions relative to industrial hedge positions.

This is standard operating procedure for China's exchanges. in the face of speculative surges such as that currently washing. into the Shanghai alumina market.

This sort of futures price volatility is a new phenomenon. for the alumina market.

Both the LME and its U.S. peer CME Group deal alumina. contracts but neither is liquid. The explosive growth in the. Shanghai contract, by contrast, has changed the dynamic in between. paper and physical markets because trading began in June last. year.

This is the second bout of turbulence on the Shanghai market. after a huge price spike in January, likewise due to concerns. about Guinean bauxite supply.

ALL EYES ON GUINEA

The cost sensitivity to occasions in Guinea highlights how. dependent China's alumina refineries have become on West African. bauxite.

China's bauxite mining sector has been struck by multiple waves. of environmental examinations, limiting domestic supply and. motivating more alumina refineries to look overseas for their. basic material.

Imports of Indonesian bauxite stopped early 2023 after the. Indonesian government prohibited exports in a drive to force its. miners downstream into refining and smelting.

Guinea has quickly emerged as China's primary bauxite provider. Imports doubled in between 2000 and 2023 to nearly 100 million loads. and were up by another 13% in the first 8 months of this. year.

The January alumina panic was down to an explosion at an oil. terminal in the Guinean port of Conakry. This time around it's. news that a regional subsidiary of Emirates Global Aluminium has. had its bauxite exports suspended by customs.

Although extremely overstated, the cost response in Shanghai. is sensible, given the absence of alternative bauxite supply and. tighter conditions in the alumina market itself.

SUPPLY HITS

Alumina supply has taken multiple hits this year.

U.S. manufacturer Alcoa revealed in January the. permanent closure of its Kwinana refinery in Australia. The. ramp-down was set up to be finished by the third quarter.

In May Rio Tinto stated force majeure on. shipments from its refineries in Queensland due to restricted. gas capacity levels.

Century Aluminum's operations in Jamaica were. briefly disrupted by Cyclone Beryl in September and South32. has flagged issues about its Australian operations. due to conditions on its operating licence required by. ecological regulators.

Meanwhile, Chinese demand for alumina has actually been growing. strongly as the country's smelters have gained from enhanced. power supply, particularly in the hydro-rich province of Yunnan.

National aluminium output increased by 4.4% year-on-year in the. initially eight months of 2024 with annualised run-rates increasing. by almost 1.5 million tons because December.

That said, China at a nationwide level doesn't appear to be. physically short of alumina considering that it continues to export. significant quantities to Russia.

Indeed, exports to Russia rose by 41% year-on-year to 1.0. million loads in January-April, turning China from net importer. to net exporter of the intermediate item.

FUTURE( S) DISRUPTION

However physical availability is not the same as exchange. accessibility.

ShFE alumina stocks have come by over half because. June to 103,416 loads. The result is time-spread tightness with. the premium for cash relative to forward agreements flaring larger. today.

Short-position holders' ability to provide physical product. will depend on just how much alumina is located at ShFE's four. delivery points in the provinces of Shandong, Henan, Gansu and. Xinjiang.

Much also hangs on how major the danger of interruption to. Guinean bauxite deliveries is. The January scare rapidly went away. and there's no sign the current incident is the precursor. of a national change of policy around exports.

What has actually changed, however, is the response time to such. events.

Before the arrival of the Shanghai futures contract, area. alumina was priced by physical freight deals, which can be. scarce in a market controlled by yearly supply. contracts.

Now a heading from Guinea can move the futures rate in. seconds, producing a detach in between paper and physical. markets.

This added volatility is going to make the formerly. relaxing alumina market a much more unstable place.

It's also going to make smelter costs a lot more. unforeseeable with a potential knock-on impact on the cost of. aluminium itself.

(source: Reuters)