By admin 
The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) numbers released this morning show that Chinese monthly primary aluminium production rose 3.6% YoY to reach a record of 3.7mt in November as rising overseas export demand helped the metal output stay elevated. Along with that, record alumina prices also helped the nationwide production of the lightweight metal to remain high despite reports of some smelters reducing output. Cumulatively, output rose 4.6% YoY to 40.2mt over the first 11 months of the year. Among other metals, monthly crude steel production fell 4.3% month-on-month to 78.4mt last month primarily due to tighter margins and seasonally weakening downstream steel consumption. Meanwhile, cumulative output fell 2.7% YoY to 929.2mt in the January-November 2024 period.
According to media reports, Japanese aluminium buyers were offered a premium of US$228/t (the highest premium since 2015) for the first quarter of 2025, up from US$175/t (+30% quarter-on-quarter) this quarter. However, it is slightly lower than the initial offers of US$230-260/t. The increase in premiums reflects expectations of tighter supply in Asia after China cancelled a 13% tax rebate on aluminium products from 1 December 2024.
In mine supply, Peru’s latest official numbers showed that copper output in the country fell 1.3% YoY to 237kt in October. It is reported that cumulative output loses from mines like Cerro Verde, and Quellaveco’s primarily contributed to Peru’s overall production decline in October. Cumulatively, production declined 0.7% YoY to 2.23mt for the first 10 months of the year.
Meanwhile, weekly data from Shanghai Futures Exchange (ShFE) shows that inventories for base metals remained mixed over the last week. Aluminium weekly stocks fell by 9,875 tonnes for a seventh consecutive week to 214,501 tonnes as of last Friday, the lowest since 10 May 2024. Copper inventories decreased by 13,199 tonnes (-13.5% week-on-week) for the eighth week straight to 84,557 tonnes (the lowest since 2 February 2024), while zinc inventories declined by 2,317 tonnes (-4.4% WoW) for a fourth consecutive week to 50,666 tonnes (the lowest since 9 February 2024) at the end of last week. In contrast, weekly inventories for lead and nickel rose by 8.3% and 1.7% respectively.
The latest positioning data from the CFTC shows that speculators increased their net longs of COMEX copper by 1,460 lots for a second consecutive week to 12,635 lots as of 10 December. In precious metals, managed money net longs in COMEX gold increased by 18,792 lots for the third week straight to 220,189 lots over the last reporting week. The move was fuelled by rising gross longs by 17,826 lots to 236,267 lots for the reporting week. Similarly, speculators increased net longs of silver by 5,792 lots for a second consecutive week to 30,685 lots over the last Tuesday.