London aluminium drops for third session

FT ONLINE

London aluminium futures slipped for a third straight session on Friday as inventories increased, easing worries over a supply shortage in the aftermath of US sanctions on major Russian producer Rusal.

On-warrant aluminium stocks in warehouses certified by the London Metal Exchange surged by 153,075 tonnes or 18 per cent on Wednesday, LME data showed on Thursday.

Three-month aluminium on the London Metal Exchange was down 0.4 per cent at $2,283.50 a tonne at 0703 GMT, not far above Thursday's two-week low of $2,248.50, reports Reuters.

About two weeks after imposing sanctions on Rusal, the United States last month gave American customers of Russia's biggest aluminium producer more time to comply with sanctions.

US said it would consider lifting them if Rusal's major shareholder, Russian tycoon Oleg Deripaska, ceded control of the company.

However, Nickel outperformed other metals, with the LME price rising to a nearly one-month high of $14,830 a tonne.

In Shanghai, the most-traded July nickel contract climbed to an intraday peak of 110,430 yuan per tonne, its loftiest since June 2015, before settling at 110,240 yuan, up 2.2 per cent.

Nickel is the best performing metal on LME this year, gaining nearly 16 per cent so far, with stocks of the metal at LME warehouses at the lowest since July 2014.

The global nickel market deficit widened to 15,700 tonnes in March from a revised deficit of 6,600 tonnes in the previous month, the International Nickel Study Group said.

LME copper was little changed at $6,873 a tonne. In Shanghai, the July copper contract on the Shanghai Futures Exchange rose 0.4 percent to end at 51,290 yuan ($8,053) a tonne.

The latest step in China's push to develop its commodities derivatives market gets underway on Monday as the Shanghai Futures Exchange launches a month-long test of a much-anticipated copper options contract.

The dollar hit a four-month high against the yen, buoyed by a rise in US Treasury yields that suggests a more upbeat outlook for the world's largest economy. Asian stocks steadied.

China's Jinchuan Group International Resources plans to double its African copper and cobalt production in the next two to three years.