Unloading is prescribed for the aluminium industry – aluminium prices may decrease again

Aluminium producers haven’t managed to block decision of the London stock exchange on the simplification of consumers’ access to aluminium stocks at the exchange’s warehouses. This may lead to the supply of large metal volumes to the market, a fall of prices and incomes of the aluminium companies, including UC Rusal.

Yesterday LME announced that its Board of Directors approved new storing rules. The key changes are reduction of time of the metal dispatch queue from a certain warehouse to 50 days and in case if this time is exceeded, the amount of metal discharge must exceed the amount of metal loading.

LME has 36 sites in different countries of the world. According to the current rules, over 3 thousand tons of metal per day can’t be dispatched even from the largest warehouses (with a capacity of over 900 thousand tons). Consumers have to wait for 200-300 days or to buy directly from a producer, paying  a premium for immediate supply.