US secondary aluminum alloys prices trended flat to up on Thursday as sales activity began to increase. The A380.1 alloy remained on its upward trajectory, edging close to the 70¢/lb range that many producers pushed for before the COVID-19 related shutdowns.
The weekly Davis Index for A380.1 ticked up by 0.02¢/lb to 68.7¢/lb delivered US consumer on Thursday and held at 73.8¢/lb delivered for 319.1. The index for A360.1 was flat at 80.8¢/lb delivered US consumer and held at 82.3¢/lb delivered US for A413.1.
The three-month LME aluminum contract closed Thursday at $1,621.50/mt, up by $58/mt from $1,563.50/mt on June 26.
Auto sales doubled in May compared with April. Although this is welcome news, sales are still at only 25pc of what they were at the beginning of the year. The indicators, while stronger, reflect that the industry still has a long way before it achieves the pre-pandemic levels of robustness.
Market participants are eyeing China’s return to the market after the Asian country announced plans to stick with the import quota model for buying scrap. Depending on the scale of China’s return to buying scrap aluminum from the US, domestic alloy producers could again face the same challenge that they saw earlier this year, that of rectifying pricing for secondary alloys with low levels of demand versus higher scrap prices.