The price of aluminium has fallen significantly on the international market, the drop coming on news that a major refinery in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has restarted. Emirates Global Aluminium (EGA), the Middle East’s top aluminium producer, said its alumina refinery had returned to production after being shut for three and a half months. Those concerned see this as a strong sign that the metal’s production in the Gulf region is returning to its earlier level, Business Recorder reported.
On the London Metal Exchange (LME), the three-month benchmark price of aluminium fell 1.8% to $3,143.50 a tonne. Early in the last session of the week, the metal had fallen by as much as about 2.1%. Even after this big drop, however, aluminium’s overall price rose 1.8% over the week, ending a decline that had run for five straight weeks. The price had recovered somewhat mainly on hopes that the geopolitical tension in the Middle East had eased a little and that supply would return to normal.
According to market analysts, ordinary investors had been keen to sell the metal on the recent rise in prices, believing that the world’s aluminium supply would grow further in future. Alongside the resumption of production in the Middle East, output and supply from Indonesia’s new refineries are also rising significantly; a new refinery in the Southeast Asian country began exporting aluminium to the international market last month.
EGA said the Al Taweelah refinery’s production capacity would rise to 50% within the next few days. Alumina is the key raw material for making aluminium, and the company hopes to restore the refinery’s output fully to its earlier level by the end of this year. Market experts, however, warned that there was still major risk to the supply of the commodity on the global market — the transport of goods through vital sea lanes such as the Strait of Hormuz remaining highly uncertain because of the ongoing military tension between the United States and Iran.
Meanwhile, aluminium stocks in LME-registered warehouses are now at their lowest since September 2022. This shortfall in stocks points to a current shortage in the immediate supply of the metal on the world market, analysts believe.
Other industrial-metal markets showed a mixed trend. Copper rose 0.1% to $13,495.50 a tonne, securing a 1% gain over the week, while copper stocks on the Shanghai Futures Exchange fell 18.3% to their lowest since last December. Lead rose 0.2% to $1,896 and nickel rose 0.9% to $16,735, with nickel prices staying high because of a sulphur shortage in the major producer Indonesia. Tin, on the other hand, fell 0.3% to $53,405, and zinc fell 0.3% to $3,614.50.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report