India's aluminium scrap arrivals up 19% m-o-m in May'24

In May 2024, India's aluminium scrap imports rose by 19% compared to the previous month, building on an 5% increase in April. However, imports were up by 1% compared to the same period last year, according to provisional data from BigMint.

In May, India's imports of aluminium scrap reached 161,644 tonnes (t), indicating a slight improvement compared to the previous month's 135,816 t. However, there was a slight increase y-o-y in the total import volume of aluminium compared to May 2023, which stood at 159,855 t.

Market insights

Despite the marginal improvement in aluminium scrap arrivals in India in April volumes were on the lower side, while in May volumes were slightly on the upper side.

However, looking at the current market scenario, scrap availability in the market has seen some improvement primarily due to the arrival of imported scrap consignments that were booked in February-March'24 which slightly eased supplies of scrap in the domestic market.

Imported, domestic price trends

Amid slight improvement in supply, prices in the domestic as well as imported material remained rang bounded primarily due to cash flow challenges due to elections in India which was concluded on first week of June'24 period, prompting many market participants to adopt a wait-and-see approach.

According to BigMint's assessment, tense mix scrap (8-9%) sourced from the UAE was priced at $1,915/t, marking a roughly 1% decrease in May compared to April.

Tense USA was priced at $1,960/t marking a roughly 1% decrease in May compared to April, Zorba was priced at $2,155/t marking a roughly 2% increase in May compared to April and taint tabor was priced at $2,027/t roughly 3% increase in May compared to April . Concurrently, in the domestic market, where tense scrap was at INR 186,109/t, remained stable m-o-m from INR 1,86,068/t ex-works Delhi.

In May 2024, LME aluminium prices marginally up to $2,613/t, 3% m-o-m rise from the preceding month's average of $2,534/t. Meanwhile, stocks witnessed a drop of 11% m-o-m to 4,89,250 t from 5,51,400 t in April 2024.

Grade-wise imports

Discussing the top grades imported, Zorba led the way with 37,949t, followed by Taint tabor at 35,713 t, extrusion at 24,916 t, tense at 21,630 t, talk at 8,024t, and other grades at 41,437 t.

In April, the northern region recorded the highest scrap imports, reaching 70,676 t, followed by the west with 61,770 t, the south with 24,042 t, and the east with 4,018 t.

Country wise imports

In May 2024, country-wise imports showed a slight improvement, with the USA being the largest supplier followed by the United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, and the Netherlands contributing 40,198 t, 17,917 t, 14,699 t, 10,740 t, and 8,514 respectively. Imports from other countries totaled up to 69,577 t.