MELBOURNE/BEIJING: London aluminium prices slipped on Thursday from near one-month highs hit in the previous session on expectations that a period of tight supply will soon come to an end.
Cancelled aluminium warrants, or metal earmarked for removal from London Metal Exchange (LME) warehouses, have surged in the past 10 days to nearly 400,000 tonnes from 235,000 tonnes in the middle of January, supporting prices.
However, the fundamentals for aluminium remain bearish, with an obvious discrepancy between abundant supply and low off-season demand in top consumer China, Everbright Futures wrote in a note.
China saw its primary aluminium output hit an all-time monthly high of over 3 million tonnes in December.
With most Chinese smelters still losing money at current prices, a "small rebound" is needed but it is difficult to tell when the inflection point will come, the brokerage said.
FUNDAMENTALS
LME ALUMINIUM: LME aluminium slipped 0.3 percent to $1,903 a tonne by 0514 GMT, after a 1.4 percent gain in the previous session.
RUSAL: The Trump administration is expected to lift sanctions on companies linked to Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, including Rusal, as soon as Friday.
That could mean that aluminium that had previously been caught by sanctions is available to market.
SHFE: On the Shanghai Futures Exchange, aluminium was up 0.7 percent at 13,575 yuan ($2,000.71) a tonne by the end of the morning.
OPEN INTEREST: Market open interest in ShFE aluminium exceeded 750,000 lots on Wednesday, its highest since Nov. 15, on short covering ahead of the week-long shutdown in China in early February for Lunar New Year.
CHINA GROWTH: China's economy can maintain sustainable rates of growth despite global uncertainties, Vice President Wang Qishan said on Wednesday, days after the world's second-largest economy posted its weakest expansion in nearly three decades.
OTHER METALS: Copper edged down 0.2 percent in London to $5,941.50 a tonne, while zinc lost 0.5 percent, while nickel and lead eked out gains of around 0.1 percent each.
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