Australia's Alumina Favours Shift to Spot Sales

SYDNEY, May 7 -- Alumina Ltd AWC.AX. favours replacing traditional contract pricing of alumina used to make aluminium with a spot sale mechanism similar to ones overtaking iron ore and coal markets, its chief executive said on Friday.

"Our position is we think we should move away from linked pricing to a spot or short-term contract pricing where we can refer to a well-accepted index that we are able to price each individual sale off," Alumina Chief Executive John Bevan told Reuters.

Alumina is traditionally priced at between 10-17 percent of the London Metal Exchange-traded price, which is currently around $2,070 a tonne CMAL3.