SHANGHAI, Nov 30 (SMM) - From November 21 to November 27, the throughput of aluminium scrap in Shandong Linyi East China Nonferrous Metal Market was about 12,500 mt, down 12,100 mt or 49.32% compared with the previous week, that of copper scrap stood at about 21,500 mt, down 43.44% WoW, and that of stainless steel scrap was about 7,800 mt, down 43.09% WoW.

A00 spot aluminium prices trended lower in the week and dipped 220 yuan/mt to 19,030 yuan/mt from the previous Friday, down 1.14% WoW. Aluminium scrap prices generally were affected by weak downstream demand. Prices of taint fell 200 yuan/mt, and those of scrap taint dropped 100 yuan/mt. In terms of supply, upstream retailers and small traders shipped their goods in a centralised way in the previous week, thus their shipments slumped last week. Most traders could not ship their goods due to poor downstream demand, and buyers held a wait-and-see sentiment amid the fluctuating aluminium prices. On the demand side, aluminium prices stood high at 19,000 yuan/mt despite the small falls, arousing fears among downstream enterprises and suppressing their buying interest. SMM survey showed that the average operating rate of leading domestic aluminium processing enterprises was 66.3% last week, down 0.8 percentage point WoW. Demand for aluminium scrap continued to weaken. On the whole, the lower aluminium scrap prices last week did not boost the scrap users’ buying interest, which eventually led to the sluggish aluminium scrap trading this week.

On November 30, spot A00 prices fell 200 yuan/mt to 18,970 yuan/mt. SHFE 2301 aluminium contract opened at 18,905 yuan/mt, hitting the highest and lowest of 18,925 yuan/mt and 18,715 yuan/mt respectively in intraday trading. It closed at 18,795 yuan/mt, down 110 yuan/mt or 0.58% from the previous trading day. SMM statistics showed that the inventory of aluminium in major domestic markets was 516,000 mt on Monday, down 14,000 mt from last Monday. It is expected that the oversupply of aluminium scrap in Linyi East China Nonferrous Metal Market will remain in place this week.