WEEKLY: China's alumina prices inch higher on tight spot availability, rising freight costs

On March 12, Mysteel assessed the national average spot price for metallurgical-grade alumina with a minimum purity of 98.6% at Yuan 2,692/tonne ($390.7/t), up by a further Yuan 17/t from a week earlier.

Limited spot material liquidity kept the supply-demand balance relatively tight during the survey week, lending support to alumina prices and keeping both supply and demand largely stable. Output of smelter-grade alumina from the 44 Chinese producers tracked by Mysteel totalled 1.78 million tonnes, up marginally by 0.1% on week, according to Mysteel's survey.

On the demand side, the total volume of the raw material consumed by the 89 primary aluminum smelters monitored by Mysteel stood at 1.65 million tonnes during the same survey week, ticking up by a miniscule 0.02% from a week earlier.

Additionally, rising freight costs driven by higher crude oil prices amid ongoing tensions in the Middle East also prompted alumina suppliers to lift their offering prices for tender-based transactions, which in turn pushed up spot alumina prices, market analysts said.

Despite the tightness in spot availability, inventories continued to build during the week, mainly due to fresh arrivals of imported alumina at ports in Shandong province and the Guangxi autonomous region, Mysteel's survey findings showed.

However, these imported volumes have yet to flow into the spot market and have not eased the supply tightness, according to market watchers. Some cargoes were stockpiled in bonded zones, while other volumes were delivered directly to end-users to support the production of high-purity aluminum.

Mysteel's data showed that as of March 12, total alumina inventories across China's 10 major ports, 44 alumina refineries, 89 primary aluminum smelters, and rail yards reached a fresh high of 5.77 million tonnes, up 0.8% from a week earlier.

Meanwhile, inventories at the 10 major ports alone climbed by 16.5% on week to 318,000 tonnes as of last Thursday.

Written by Iris Pang, pangjunyu@mysteel.com

Edited by Russ McCulloch, russ.mcculloch@mysteel.com