China’s aluminium ingot inventories fall below 1 Mt, attributed to growing proportion of molten aluminium output

China’s social inventories of aluminium ingot across eight major consumption areas, including SHFE warrants, decreased by 72,000 tonnes week-on-week to come below 1 million tonnes on Thursday, April 13, found the Shanghai Metals Market survey. Data shows the inventories totalled 966,000 tonnes this week versus 1.038 million tonnes on April 6 and 1.006 million tonnes on April 10. 

A week earlier, primary aluminium inventories registered a weekly fall of 50,000 tonnes. So far this month, aluminium ingot inventories have lost 121,000 tonnes of stock, reaching the lowest level compared to the same period of the past five years. The low inventory of aluminium ingots is partly associated with a growing proportion of molten aluminium in smelters’ total output.

To know more about the current status of primary aluminium inventories across China, refer to the chart below:

Wuxi saw the highest plunge this week losing 36,000 tonnes from its inventories. Therefore, according to SMM, ingot inventories in Wuxi amounted to 342,000 tonnes as of April 13. In Nanhai, primary aluminium inventories shrank by 24,000 tonnes to close the week at 207,000 tonnes, followed by a decline of 15,000 tonnes W-o-W to 180,000 tonnes in Gongyi.

In Tianjin and Hangzhou, however, the inventories slipped by only 2,000 tonnes and 1,000 tonnes, respectively, to stand at 72,000 tonnes and 67,000 tonnes.

Meanwhile, in Shanghai, aluminium ingot inventories rose 6,000 tonnes from the past week to settle at 59,000 tonnes. In Chongqing and Linyi, the inventories remained restrained at 10,000 tonnes and 29,000 tonnes, respectively, found SMM.