Fastmarkets analyst Yang Cao and reporter Justin Yang size up the aluminium market ahead of LME Week, which begins Monday October 11.
Aluminium has been the second-strongest performer of the base metals this year (behind tin), with the London Metal Exchange three-month price gaining 51% from where it was at the end of last year, reaching the intraday high of $3,000 per tonne in September. The main reason behind the rally was the emergence of strict and widespread energy usage restrictions in China and the resulting smelter production disruptions there.For example, in August, Changji prefecture in the Xinjiang region imposed output limits on five aluminium smelters, which we believe had to reduce operational capacity by almost 450,000 tonnes as a result.Then in September, the government...