However, due to the rally of Chinese domestic aluminium prices, primarily from the beginning of April, aluminium ingot destocking took a back seat. The downstream activities also slowed down during the three-day holiday for the Qingming Festival, which also inhibited aluminium ingot destocking.
The trend goes on
But the inventories only grew week-on-week in early April and remained low than the previous year. For instance, on April 8, SMM found the inventories across China’s eight major consumption areas at 863,000 tonnes, up by 16,000 tonnes W-o-W and down by 175,000 tonnes Y-o-Y. In fact, the figure was at the lowest compared to the same period of past seven years.
The annual downfall in inventories despite the limited outflow of stocks during the Qingming Festival was mainly due to the concentrated arrival of goods. After the import window closed in Shanghai, the supply of imported goods dropped to a low level.
