Aluminum Prices Low; SHFE Aluminum Spot Premiums Hit New Annual High [SMM Spot Aluminum Midday Review]

On October 13, the Management Committee of Jinan Start-up Area for Replacing Old Growth Drivers with New Ones in Shandong Province released the first public announcement of the environmental impact assessment for the Jereh Lithium Battery Resource Recycling Project of Jereh Resources Recycling Technology (Jinan) Co., Ltd. The new project is located in the Green New Intelligent Manufacturing Industrial Park on Xiehu Road, Taiping Subdistrict, Jiyang District, Jinan, Shandong Province, specifically in Buildings 14-B# and 15# of Phase II of the green building area. The project is expected to build two production lines: one for dismantling, crushing, and pulverizing 25,000 mt of scrap LFP batteries per year, and another for dismantling, crushing, and pulverizing 60,000 mt of scrap LFP and ternary lithium batteries per year. Major equipment includes battery pack dismantling equipment, crushing equipment, pyrolysis equipment, sorting equipment, and supporting environmental protection facilities. In terms of process, the project adopts procedures including battery pack code-scanning traceability and dismantling, battery cell code-scanning traceability, discharge-free crushing, oxygen-free pyrolysis, and sorting. Exhaust gas generated from crushing and pyrolysis will be sent to supporting waste gas purification facilities for treatment. The final recovered products include black mass, copper products, and aluminum products. Upon completion, the project will have a disposal capacity of 85,000 mt of scrap LFP and ternary lithium batteries per year.

Gleich Aluminium has successfully installed a new IMA Schelling fm 8 sheets & plates cutting system at its plant in Kaltenkirchen, Germany, replacing the original sawing machine. The entire installation was completed in just three weeks while maintaining normal operations. As an enterprise with 150 employees and an annual output of approximately 20,000 mt of aluminum, Gleich Aluminium has a clear need for equipment upgrades. The company's general manager, Sebastian Ricken, pointed out that design details and cost-effectiveness were the key deciding factors in this selection. The new system features intelligent nesting, which can automatically group hundreds of orders by material thickness through software and calculate the optimal cutting plan before processing, thereby keeping the scrap rate below 10%.

US-Mexico tariff agreement negotiations have stalled due to opposition from US Commerce Secretary Lutnick, marking the second time he has intervened and derailed talks with the North American partner that had already made substantial progress. According to people familiar with the matter, the two sides had previously been close to reaching an agreement: the US would lower tariffs on steel, aluminum, and automobiles in exchange for a series of concessions from Mexico, paving the way for further negotiations on renewing the USMCA. At that time, Mexican officials and numerous enterprise executives expressed optimism that an agreement was about to be reached. However, the sources noted that negotiations have slowed down noticeably in recent days. The disagreements center primarily on US tariffs on automobiles and metal products—Lutnick opposes significant cuts to tariffs on Mexican-made automobiles as well as tariffs on steel and aluminum products, and also opposes lowering tariffs on "derivative products" made from steel and aluminum. In response, officials from both the US and Mexico stated that negotiations are still ongoing and denied that the talks have reached an impasse.