The US Midwest P1020 aluminium premium held its range on Tuesday December 4, while domestic market participants kept out of the spot market and focused on depleting their existing inventories before the end of the year.
Fastmarkets AMM assessed the P1020 duty-paid Midwest aluminium premium at 19-19.5 cents per lb on December 4, unchanged from the previous assessment. The premium had declined on November 30, after holding in a range of 19.25-19.75 cents per lb since October 26.Spot activity has been lagging during the seasonally slow period, with buyers substituting competitively priced scrap aluminium for primary metal and drawing down their current inventories in the approach to January. "[Buyers] need inventories down to zero when they close their books," one trader source said."I think most people are long or winding down contracts. Scrap's still plentiful, so I think it's okay [to be] a little long. Plus, it's the end of the year, so most plants don't take many...