Aluminum spot price to be more than $1,600/tonne in 2016 - Rusal CFO
MOSCOW. Dec 10 (Interfax) - UC Rusal forecasts spot prices and premium for aluminum will rise in 2016.
"The market will likely return to a state of deficit in 2016, and that certainly ought to push prices and premiums up. We are expecting the current level will not persist in the long term and that the spot price will exceed $1,600 a tonne. Premiums will also grow," the Russian aluminum giant's CFO, Alexandra Buriko, told Interfax.
She said current prices on the LME, below $1,500, and premiums could not last long as these were below cost for a large number of producers.
"We expect China to offload less metal onto the external market, which ought to have a positive impact on the overall market situation. Rusal also expects that producers with the highest costs will cut back. This has already arisen - above all in North America, Alcoa has already talked about this. This ought to have a positive impact on prices," Buriko said.
Chinese aluminum exports hit a 2015 high of 450,000 tonnes in November, 41.5% more than in October. They rose 14.4% year-on-year in January-November to 4.34 million tonnes.
Rusal has said it expects a global aluminum market surplus of 373,000 tonnes in 2015 but a deficit thereafter.
