MI ANALYSIS: Producer unwrought aluminium stocks plunge

Producer stocks of unwrought primary aluminium outside of China plunged by 84,000t to 1.467 million tonnes at the end of June, according to the latest provisional figures released by the International Aluminium Institute (IAI). Total stocks of aluminium (unwrought plus metal in process plus mill products) fell to 2.799 million tonnes, the lowest level since the IAI began compiling the data in 1973. Unwrought stocks are now down by 154,000t on the start of 2007 with the two main drivers North America and Western Europe. North American unwrought stocks fell by 53,000t over the course of June to 345,000t, which was the biggest factor in the overall monthly decline. They are now down by 86,000t since the start of January. European stocks fell by only 9,000t in June but at 531,000t at the end of that month they were showing a year-to-date decrease of 81,000t. Also, as the chart shows, this extends a pattern of extremely low stocks by historical standards in the region. Factoring these IAI figures into the global reported stocks picture shows that these fell by just over 83,000t in June to 2,559,587t. The driver was the slump in producer stocks with other reported stocks movements largely cancelling each other out. Total reported stocks ended June showing a year-to-date net decline of 33,707t, the first shift to net decline since the start of the year.