Aluminium stocks at Shanghai-bonded warehouses surged by over 200% year on year in October on a profitable import arbitrage, while copper inventories grew on both annually and quarterly comparisons.
Open arb window, 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.
"China demand was pretty good from September and the open arbitrage window since the end of September encouraged more aluminium cargoes to come to China," one aluminium...