Aluminum price holds gain as withdrawals from warehouses in Asia surge

Aluminum held recent gains as requests to make withdrawals from London Metal Exchange warehouses in Asia surged for a second day.

Prices fluctuated near $2,615 a ton in choppy trading, after advancing 1% over the previous two sessions. Requests to load out almost 100,000 tons of aluminum from LME depots in Malaysia in just two days reduced the volume of stockpiles available to other buyers from a 14-month high.

The LME aluminum market has been rocked this year as traders vied for control of exchange inventories, with Bloomberg reporting in June that Mercuria Energy Group had amassed more than 90% of available stocks and an unusually large position in the market.

The move prompted the bourse to introduce new rules compelling traders with large futures positions to lend them back at capped rates, supplementing similar rules already governing inventory holdings. While stockpiles have risen in recent months, they remain historically low, and there have been ongoing concerns about supply.

Aluminum rose 0.2% to settle at $2,622.50 a ton at 5:50 p.m. local time on the LME on Tuesday. Copper was little-changed at $9,914 a ton, with other metals edging lower.

(By Carlos Caminada)