India’s exports of aluminium alloy ingots rose by 717pc in October from the prior year, following a drop in China’s alloy production caused by restrictions on import of scrap.
India exported 7,180mt of aluminium alloy ingots in October, up by 6,302mt from the previous year. In the Jan-Oct period, India’s exports of the casting alloy rose by 793pc or 40,836mt from the prior year period, when India exported 5,149mt of aluminium alloy ingots.
India exported 3,005mt, the largest volume of aluminium alloy ingots to South Korea in October, with no exports to Korea in October last year. China also received 1,740mt while it had not imported any ingots from India in the same period last year.
A drastic increase in India’s aluminium alloy exports to China and South Korea was the result of China’s strict scrap import restriction that came to effect on July 1, 2019. China was a major producer of aluminium alloy ingots, importing scrap as raw material and exporting ingots to markets like Japan. With scrap import restrictions creating a shortage of secondary raw material, China’s alloy industry has turned to importing aluminium alloy ingots from India, driving up prices of tense and taint/tabor scrap, the raw materials used in production of the alloy.
From Jan-Oct, India exported 18,119mt of aluminium alloy ingot to Korea, up by 17,917mt from the prior year. India’s exports to the US were up by 7,354mt from 504mt the previous year. India’s aluminium alloy ingots also found a market in Mexico, with exports of 7,517mt; in the Netherlands with exports of 4,175mt and in Japan, with exports of 3,517mt.