Global aluminium short-term outlook May 2019

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. So far in 2019 we have seen the removal of 2018 price supportive factors – Rusal sanctions, Section 232 and the Alunorte cut. These have been replaced with price depressing events – intensification of the US-China trade war, a sharper than expected slowdown in global economic activity and a jump in the availability of aluminium scrap. Investor sentiment towards the light metal remains negative with LME prices struggling to move above the US$1800/t for any length of time. Yet all the while in the background global market supply-demand fundamentals continue to exhibit tightness.