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Shanghai craze 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 convert the intermediate item into. metal.

The London Metal Exchange (LME) money rate, indexed. to Platts benchmark Australian alumina evaluation, closed. Wednesday at $633.35 per metric heap, lifting the ratio to the. aluminium price to practically 25%.

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

A series of supply interruptions have actually driven the alumina price. higher this year. The trigger for the latest cost dive was news. of export issues in Guinea, the significant import source of bauxite. for China's alumina refineries.

The physical alumina market is undoubtedly tight however the. explosive nature of the rate action likewise signals a speculative. frenzy on the Shanghai Futures Exchange (ShFE).

SHANGHAI BOOM

Almost 25 million heaps were negotiated on the ShFE alumina. contract on Wednesday, a record daily high and comparable to. almost a fifth of international annual production.

Open interest has also soared to life-of-contract highs as. financiers have actually purchased into a steadily rising market.

The exchange adjusted both trading limitations and margins on. Thursday, enforcing a portion point premium on speculative. positions relative to industrial hedge positions.

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

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

Both the LME and its U.S. peer CME Group offer alumina. contracts but neither is liquid. The explosive growth in the. Shanghai agreement, by contrast, has actually changed the dynamic between. paper and physical markets considering that trading started in June last. year. This is the second bout of turbulence on the Shanghai market. after a massive rate spike in January, likewise due to concerns. about Guinean bauxite supply.

ALL EYES ON GUINEA

The price sensitivity to occasions in Guinea highlights how. reliant China's alumina refineries have actually ended up being on West African. bauxite.

China's bauxite mining sector has actually been hit by multiple waves. of environmental examinations, restricting domestic supply and. encouraging more alumina refineries to look overseas for their. raw material.

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

Guinea has actually fast emerged as China's primary bauxite supplier. Imports doubled in between 2000 and 2023 to practically 100 million heaps. 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 exaggerated, the rate response in Shanghai. is logical, 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 announced in January the irreversible. closure of its Kwinana refinery in Australia. The ramp-down was. set up to be finished by the 3rd 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. interrupted 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.

On the other hand, Chinese need for alumina has been growing. strongly as the country's smelters have gained from enhanced. power supply, especially in the hydro-rich province of. Yunnan.

National aluminium output rose by 4.4% year-on-year in the. initially 8 months of 2024 with annualised run-rates increasing. by nearly 1.5 million loads since December.

That said, China at a national level does not seem to be. physically short of alumina because it continues to export. significant quantities to Russia.

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

FUTURE( S) DISRUPTION

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

ShFE alumina stocks have actually come by majority since. June to 103,416 tons. The outcome is time-spread tightness with. the premium for money relative to forward agreements flaring larger. today.

Short-position holders' ability to deliver physical material. will depend upon how much alumina is located at ShFE's four. shipment points in the provinces of Shandong, Henan, Gansu and. Xinjiang.

Much also hangs on how serious the hazard of disruption to. Guinean bauxite shipments is. The January scare quickly went away. and there's no indication the current occurrence is the harbinger. of a national modification of policy around exports.

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

Before the arrival of the Shanghai futures agreement, spot. alumina was priced by physical freight transactions, which can be. rare in a market dominated by annual supply. contracts.

Now a headline from Guinea can move the futures rate in. seconds, creating a disconnect between paper and physical. markets.

This included volatility is going to make the previously. peaceful alumina market a lot more rough place.

It's also going to make smelter costs much more. unforeseeable with a prospective knock-on impact on the price of. aluminium itself.

(source: Reuters)