Rising Electricity Prices Pushed up Smelters’ Costs

SHANGHAI, Sep 5 (SMM) - While prebaked anode benchmark purchase prices dropped slightly in September, rising coal prices and the arrival of the dry season led to an increase in the power costs of aluminium smelters. SMM data showed that the weighted average electricity price in the domestic aluminium industry increased 0.016 yuan/kWh from beginning of August to 0.453 yuan/kWh as of September 2. The SMM spot A00 aluminium prices fell for four consecutive days and averaged 18,110 yuan/mt last Friday, while the real-time cost of smelters rose 93 yuan/mt from a week ago to 18,007 yuan/mt, reducing the profits of smelters by 843 yuan/mt to just 103 yuan/mt. In view of rising power costs and limited decline in raw material prices, the profitability of smelters will barely improve in the short term.