Overall, prebaked anode export orders performed well in Q1 2025, particularly those to Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, and Canada, with notable increases. Additionally, orders to Malaysia saw a significant decline, mainly due to reduced demand from aluminum enterprises in Malaysia following a sudden production halt caused by an accident, which impacted their capacity. According to SMM, export orders performed exceptionally well in 2025, primarily due to increased demand driven by new capacity additions and capacity recoveries at some overseas aluminum enterprises. Additionally, SMM learned that Rusal has initiated capacity optimization measures since the end of 2024, reducing overall aluminum production by 10%. These production cuts were evenly implemented across various plants in Siberia and other regions, without closing any plants or halting production entirely. Therefore, it is expected that export orders to Russia will slightly decline in the future, although current data does not yet reflect this trend. In Q1 2025, domestic prebaked anode prices increased significantly, supported by soaring raw material prices, and overseas order prices also rose substantially in line with raw material prices. In March 2025, export order prices increased by 17.07% YoY. Moving into Q2, the raw material side for prebaked anode has shown weakness, with support loosening, and export order prices are expected to shift from rising to falling.

【SMM Midday Review of Spot Aluminum: On the Last Trading Day Before the Holiday, SHFE Aluminum Spot Trades Showed Ordinary Performance】

According to SMM statistics, the inventory of aluminum billets in China's major consumption areas stood at 151,000 mt on April 30, a decrease of 11,600 mt from the previous Monday. This morning, the most-traded SHFE aluminum contract continued to oscillate around the 20,000 yuan/mt level. As the Labour Day holiday approached, suppliers held firm on their processing fee quotes. In South China, suppliers intended to accelerate the pace of sales and lowered their processing fees. In the Nanchang area of east China, however, processing fees remained stable as downstream buyers maintained their just-in-time purchases. Nevertheless, trading sentiment was somewhat lackluster on the day before the Labour Day holiday. Today, the aluminum billet market in Foshan reported processing fees of 320/370 yuan/mt, a decrease of 10 yuan/mt. The processing fees in Wuxi market were reported at 350/450 yuan/mt, unchanged. In the Nanchang area, processing fees were reported at 400/450 yuan/mt, also unchanged. (Unit: yuan/mt)