Feb aluminium foil exports grow 0.7% YoY

Operating rates across major aluminium processors rose slightly last week as they had to accept high aluminium prices to deliver orders. End-users find it difficult to accept current high aluminium prices. As some end-users adopt quarterly or semi-annual pricing, high aluminium prices will not pass through to end-users until they complete Q2 pricing.

China exported 1.23 million mt of aluminium foil in 2020, down 4.95% on the year, according to customs data.

SMM has surveyed 41 aluminium processing enterprises across 12 provinces. Operating rates across major aluminium processors increased 19 percentage points from a week ago to 60.1% last week.

China's imports of cobalt raw materials, including ore and intermediate products, came in at 8,000 mt in January, down 25% from December, showed the latest customs data. Imports in 2019 were 24%...

The imports in December exceeded that in November to the highest monthly level since September 2018

On a monthly basis, however, aluminium foil exports edged up 1.87% last month

This followed after shipment recovery from typhoon boosted the arrivals two weeks ago

Operating rate fell 4.77 percentage points from Jun to 83.06% in Jul

However, H1 exports hit a record high of 670,300 mt, up 8% from Jan-Jun of 2018

Exports in H1 expanded 10% from a year ago and stood at 2.98 million mt