Bloomberg.com
Harbor Intelligence confirms U.S. aluminum fee rise
Edited by : AL CIRCLE
1 min read
The fee buyers pay to obtain aluminum in the U.S. climbed to a record amid longer waits for warehouse supplies and reduced availability of scrap metal, Harbor Intelligence said.
The so-called Midwest premium is 12 cents to 13 cents a pound, an all-time high, according to Harbor Intelligence, an Austin, Texas-based researcher. The fee was 11.75 cents to 12.5 cents earlier this month. The surcharge is added to the price of aluminum for immediate delivery on the London Metal Exchange.
“A steady supply of metal is getting into warehouses and lengthening queues,” Jorge Vazquez, a managing director at Harbor, said in a telephone interview. “We’re also seeing tighter markets for scrap and off-grade metals, as well as a slight pickup in physical demand outside the LME.”
Orders to remove aluminum from warehouses monitored by the LME in Detroit, the biggest U.S. repository of the metal, have jumped 28 percent in the past 12 months, bourse data show.
Backlogs have grown as more metal gets tied up in financing deals that typically involve the purchase of metal for nearby delivery and a forward sale to take advantage of a market in contango, where prices rise into the future.
The so-called Midwest premium is 12 cents to 13 cents a pound, an all-time high, according to Harbor Intelligence, an Austin, Texas-based researcher. The fee was 11.75 cents to 12.5 cents earlier this month. The surcharge is added to the price of aluminum for immediate delivery on the London Metal Exchange.
“A steady supply of metal is getting into warehouses and lengthening queues,” Jorge Vazquez, a managing director at Harbor, said in a telephone interview. “We’re also seeing tighter markets for scrap and off-grade metals, as well as a slight pickup in physical demand outside the LME.”
Orders to remove aluminum from warehouses monitored by the LME in Detroit, the biggest U.S. repository of the metal, have jumped 28 percent in the past 12 months, bourse data show.
Backlogs have grown as more metal gets tied up in financing deals that typically involve the purchase of metal for nearby delivery and a forward sale to take advantage of a market in contango, where prices rise into the future.
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