Global aluminium short-term outlook December

The aluminium market service short term outlook (STO) is published monthly and provides a forecast of aluminium supply and demand fundamentals over the next two-years. It’s not often that aluminium is ranked as the best performing metal out of the major LME base metals. 2021 has certainly been an extraordinary year for the light metal. The 31% gain in the official cash price since the start of 2021 was driven by several factors. China’s energy crisis and policies constrained output growth while some smelters in the world ex-China also suffered from rising energy costs. All of this came at a time when demand growth was rebounding rapidly, especially in the developed world. However, the risks are mounting for demand growth in 2022, while world ex-China supply is projected to rebound strongly. Nevertheless, we expect China to continue to curb output growth which will result in another year of deficit for the global aluminium market.