According to Mysteel's price assessment, the national price for smelter-grade alumina with purity above 98.6 per cent had risen by 1.1 per cent from July 10 to reach Yuan 3,193/tonne ($445/t) on July 17. This followed a 1.2 per cent increase recorded during the previous week.
Last week's price gains were largely driven by reduced availability of spot goods, as output growth slowed. This was primarily due to ongoing maintenance stoppages at two alumina producers in Shandong province and the Guangxi autonomous region which began in early July and have continued to constrain production, market analysts noted.
During the same period, the 44 alumina refiners under Mysteel's regular tracking produced 1.79 million tonnes of metallurgical-grade alumina, a marginal 0.4 per cent increase from the previous week, the results of Mysteel's latest survey showed. The rise was smaller than the 2.1 per cent on-week increase seen in the prior week, Mysteel Global noted.
