Copying and distributing are prohibited without permission of the publisher

(AMM) Warehouses rein in aluminum incentives

July 29, 2010 - 23:48 GMT Location: New York

KEYWORDS: LME warehouses , aluminum

Warehousing companies in the United States are reducing the incentives they are willing to pay to entice aluminum in a dramatic reversal in strategy, market sources told AMM.

The move could put downward pressure on U.S. premiums, market sources said, since consumers will not be competing with the warehousing companies to get hold of metal.

"Warehouses are starting to scale back their incentives. We got a call (from a trader) about it," said one warehousing source whose company had stopped offering incentives earlier this year because he could not compete with his rivals offering incentives of triple-digit sums.

With competitors reining in their incentives, however, the source said he was receiving interest from the trade once again.

"They were as high as $130 and are dropping from there," he said of other warehouses' record incentives.

Other market players confirmed that some of the warehouses are pulling back when it comes to incentives.

"I know they've been cut back quite aggressively," said a Category...

All material subject to strictly enforced copyright laws. © Euromoney Institutional Investor PLC.


subscribe to this feed Comment & analysis

  • LORD COPPER: Glencore-Xstrata will be a merger of more-than-equals

    Glenstrata, X-Core, Davenberg, Mivan? Whatever the result of the Glencore-Xstrata merger is to be called, finding a name is an inevitable step after the IPO.

  • COMMENT: Glenstrata still has to break the mould

    The news that Glencore and Xstrata are in merger talks would only come as a surprise to someone living under a rock, and only then if said rock did not contain any valuable minerals. But now that talks of a tie-up of the world’s largest metals trader and its fourth largest miner have finally moved into the boardroom, hypothetical questions have become real, and the answers are far from certain.

  • APEX FULL YEAR 2011: Base metal forecasts: astounding accuracy

    Astounding upon astounding: that is how the 2011 leaderboard for Apex, the Metal Bulletin service that tracks the performance of over twenty top base metal price forecasters, appears when you consider it coldly.

Upcoming Events