Aluminium stocks at Shanghai-bonded warehouses surged by over 200% year on year in October on a profitable import arbitrage, while zinc inventories and copper inventories grew on both annually and quarterly comparisons.
Open arb window and good demand support aluminium stocks increase
Fastmarkets assessed
Shanghai-bonded aluminium stocks at 30,000-30,500 tonnes on Friday October 30, up by 203% from 9,500-10,500 tonnes in the same period last year.
Stocks also rose by 61.3% from 18,500-19,000 tonnes in September 2020.
The aluminium import arbitrage window in China opened several times between September 28 and the end of October, including six consecutive days from October 20.
The
arbitrage for importing aluminium into China averaged a profit of $4.85 per tonne in October compared with an average loss of $13.32 per tonne in September and a loss of $135.51 per tonne in October 2019.